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ZEN BUDDHISM ·
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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE KYOTO ZEN SYMPOSIUM

No. 15 November 1998

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THE KYOTO SEMINAR FOR RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY

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Cover Calligraphy by ZEN BUDDHISM T
Seiko Hirata -ANNUAL REPORT OF THE KYOTO ZE
No. 15 November 1998
((J(atsu))
(a shout to awaken trainees) CONTENTS

NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY, NISHITANI'S PHILOSOPHY, AND ZEN

Aections on the Notion ofReality in the Thought ofNishida and

opyright © 1998 by the Kyoto Seminar for Religious Philosophy, Kyoto,
apan. Al! rights reserved. No reproduction or translation without written
permission from the publisher.
Published by
The Kyoto Seminar for Religious Philosophy
Tenryü-ji Institute for Philosophy and Religion
68 Susukinobaba-ch6, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, 616-8385 Japan
Nishitani
- Bernard Stevens .. . .. ...................... ..... ..................... ......... l
Nishida's Philosophy of Religion: A Religious Philosophy
-Michiko Tusa .............................................................. 15
The Bodily Manifestation of Religious Experience and Late Nishida
Philosophy
-Augustín Jacinto Z. ....... ................... .... .......... ..... . .......... 33
Questions Posed by Nishida's Philosophy
-Fujita Masakatsu .......................................................... 51
The Language of the Kyoto School of Philosophy
- Yagi Seiichi ................................................................. 65
Nishitani Revisited
-jan Van Bragt ............................................................. 77
Emptiness, History, Accountability: A Critica! Examination of
Nishitani Keiji's Standpoint
- John C. Mara/do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
The Problem of the Other in Self-Awareness
-Hase Shótó ................................................................. 119
Practicing Philosophy as a Matter of Life and Death
-Graham Parkes ... ............ ............................................ 139
Gyakutaió and Gyakuen: Nishida's Philosophy, Nishitani's
Philosophy, and Zen
-Horio Tsutomu ..................... ....................................... 155
Mterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Cumulative Listing of Contents, Vols. l-15 ... . ........................... 175
Index of Authors, Vols. l-15 ................................................ 189
 ~(.,~--..;·
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Reflections on the Notion of Reality

in the Thought of Nishida and Nishitani

BERNARD STEVENS

T FIRST GLANCE, Zen no kenkyü ~ O)~JfJ'¿ [A study of the good] 1 may seem
A somewhat disappointing, despite the fact that in many ways it consti-
tutes the fountainhead ofKyoto-school philosophy. It can appear to be a k.ind
of schematization and flattening of Hegel's Phiinomenologie des Geistes
(POERTNER and HEISE 1995, pp. 336-38)/ with a few colorful references to
non-Western thought thrown in to lend it sorne apparent originality. It can
be regarded as moving in the realm of the obvious, and seen as the result of
an adequate but average understanding ofWestern philosophy. It does not
strike one immediately as being a milestone in the history of philosophical
thought. And I must admit that my first reading of the book left me with an
impression clase to this.
However, after becoming better acquainted with the philosophy of the
Kyoto school as well as with its Japanese and Asían cultural background, I
have gradually changed my view and have recently rediscovered this book in
a new light. Zen no kenkyü does indeed appear to be a relatively simple work.
But it is, I believe, the type of simplicity Heidegger told us we must try to
regain: not the simplicity of simple-mindedness, nor the simplicity of the
infancy of the Spirit, but the simplicity of das Anfiingliche, "the beginning,"
or das Ursprüngliche, "originality." The very simplicity ofthis book makes for
its difficulty, in a way comparable to the way that archaic Greek thought, in
its embryonic form, contains too much conceptual richness and too many
levels of meaning to be easily transcribed into the more "scholastic" discourse
of the conventional academia. This book contains-and this might also be

1
Hercafter abbreviated as ZK. Translated into English asAn Inquiry into the Good (hercafrer
IG), by Masao Abe and Christopher Ives (NISHIDA 1990 ).
2
POERTNER and HEISE ( 1995, pp. 336-38 ) havc convincingly demonstrated the inAuence of
the English neo-Hegelian Thomas Hill Green on Nishida's Zen no kenkyii.

l
 STEVENS
linked to the semantic structure of the Japanese language-a type of
"plurivocity" that cannot be exhausted by the "univocity" aimed at by mod-
ern philosophy with its scientific and racional ambitions.
This "archaism" of Zen no kenkyü contributes to its perfection. Nishida
himself declared that, although he felt unsatisfied with the book in his later
years, he couldn't change it because "one's thoughts have a living integrity at
each point oftime" (ZK, p. 6; IG, p. xxxi). He also added that "what lay deep
in my thought" while writing the book was not limited to its apparent "psy-
chologism," but already contained what was to develop into such later
notions as "absolute will" ( zettai ishi ~M :'f.$), "place" ( basho ~pfr ), "dialec-
~ tical universal" ( benshohoteki ippansha #~iEitá~-A~~ ), "acting intuition"
r-L...., (koiteki chokkan 1p!:8~i1!~), and "historie~! reali~" (r~kis~itek~ ~~t:uzai
J!f~ÉI~~f:E). Thus the notlon of "pure expenence" ()unsut ketken :W.#if,I~)
~-'
~l
that forms the core of Zen no kenkyü is not "overcome" in Nishida's later phi-
rr losophy but is continued, with its various seminal potentialities progressively
explored and new viewpoints opened, new concepts discovered, and new
possibilities enabled that in no way negate the original ones.
And I believe it is not just the la ter philosophy of Nishida that is seminally
~
contained in Zen no kenkyü, but also the various aspects of the philosophy of
) the Kyoto school as a whole. Moreover-although this might sound like
somewhat of an overstatement-it is not just the philosophy of the Kyoto-
school philosophers that was affected but also that of people who, like us
today, took Nishida's endeavor seriously and attempted to follow the path of
thought he opened for future generations. It seems to me that one of the
most thought-provoking notions of Zen no kenkyü in this respect is Nishida's
~- ~ notion of reality Uitsuzai ~{E) or the universe (uchü +ii) as a "manifesta-
4~~ tion of God" (ka mi no hyogen t$ O)~JJI.). The following pages do not offer an
explanation of that notion, but just a few hints at sorne of the steps that can
lead in its direction.
,~1
The Ground Common to Nishitani and Nishida
The author who has probably influenced me the most in my new estimation
of Nishida's philosophy is Nishitani Keiji, whose writings, being more acces-
sible to Western ways of thought than those of Nishida, often prove more
appealing to the European reader. Two books ofNishitani's in particular have
clarified my understanding of Nishida: Shükyo to wa nanika *~~t¡±friJf.p
2 3
THE NOTION OF REALITY IN NISHIDA ANO NISHITANI
(NISHITANI 1961; hereafter SN) 3 and Nishida Kitaro: Sano hito to shiso
®"93~~!'!~- -'(-0)}\.c.\l;l,~ (NISHITANI 1985),' his monograph on Nishida.
When, for example, Nishitani states in his introduction to Shükyo to wa
nanika that "the inquiry into religion attempted here proceeds by way of
problems judged to lay hidden at the ground of the historical frontier we call
'the modern world,' with the aim of delving into the ground of human exis-
tence and, at the same time, searching anew for the wellsprings of reality
itself" (SN, p. 2; RN p. xlvii), I personally understand this statement as a per-
fect continuation of what Nishida was attempting to do through his notion
of "pure experience." Indeed, pure experience-a concept that is meant,
among other things, to counter the obliterating preeminence of the intellec-
tual over the volitional in modern thought-is precisely "the ground of
human existence" and the "wellsprings of reality itself," since Nishida saw in
it the main access to "the problem of human life" Uinsei no mondai
}\.~O)r",M) as well as to the "unconscious unifYing force" (muishiki toitsu
ryoku ?Wi:'f.~llHJc - :1J) that functions both at the heart of human consciousness
and at the heart of reality as a whole. Although Nishida's approach to the reli-
gious problem in Zen no kenkyü is psychological and epistemological as
opposed to the existencial approach of Nishitani, the "immanentist realistic"
standpoint (or "radical realist" standpoint) constructed in Zen no kenkyü still
remains the basis without which Nishitani's impressive intercultural enter-
prise might not have been possible.
This appears clearly when Nishitani speaks of religion "as the self-awareness
of reality, or, more correctly, the real self-awareness of reality" Uitsuzai no jit-
suzaitekina jikaku ~ ffO)~{E~ t:t § 1t ). Nishitani explains further that
by the self-awareness of reality I mean both our becoming aware of
reality and, at the same time, the reality realizing itself in our aware-
ness .... In this sense, the realness of our existen ce, as the appropria-
tion of reality, belongs to reality itself as the self-realization of reality
itself. (SN,p.8;RN p.S)
This question of "reality," which Nishitani views here from an existential-
religious standpoint, had been considered by Nishida from an epistemological
3
Translated into English as Religion and Nothingness (hereafter RN ) by Jan Van Bragt ( NISHI-
TANI 1982).
4
Translated into English as Nishida KitariJ (hereafter NK) by Yamamoto Seisaku and James
W. Heisig (NISHITANI 1991).
 STEVENS
perspective. Indeed, it is Nishida who opened the path to grasping reality
beyond the subject-object dichotomy, before "the standpoint of separation
of subject and object, or opposition between within and without, what we
call the field of consciousness" (ZK p. 14; IG p. 9). So if Nishitani makes a
more extensive use of the theological terminology of religion and the onto-
logical terminology of existen tia! thought, with clearly readable references to
famous texts of the Christian and Buddhist literatures, it is from a standpoint
that had previously been defined by Nishida on the level of pure experience.
This appears more specifically in Nishitani's book Nishida Kitaro, which I
would now like to look at more closely.
Nishitani's study on Nishida is instructive on many levels, but there are
three aspects of the book that have struck me as particularly thought-provoking:
1) the relationship Nishitani identifies between Nishida's work and the Euro-
pean intellectual context of the late nineteenth century; 2) the link he estab-
lishes between Nishida's ontological "principle" (ri ~) and the Aristotelian
notion of "power" or "potentiality" (dynamis), together with the Leibnizian
notion of"force" (vis); 3) his explanation ofNishida's concept ofGod.
The Historical Situation of Nishida
In part 2 of Nishida Kitaro Nishitani has a chapter entitled "Nishida's Place
in Philosophy." Here Nishitani shows how Nishida's thought can be seen as
an attempt to respond to the crisis in European philosophy at the turn of the
century. It is an attempt comparable in many ways to that of Husserl,
although Nishitani, unfortunately, does not establish this comparison him-
self. One of the interesting things about Nishitani's description is its proxim-
ity to Heidegger's position regarding the state of philosophy at the time
Husserl wrote his Logische Untersuchungen. Indeed, in his lectures on the
concept of time, Heidegger shows how Husserl's phenomenology was an
attempt to respond to the decline of philosophy in the fa ce of the rise of pos-
itivism (HEIDEGGER 1924). Ido not know whether Nishitani was acquainted
with Heidegger's lectures, but if he wasn't the similarities are all the more
striking, and point to a correspondence between Nishida's and Husserl's
respective enterprises that demands further examination. Here I will only
offer a brief sketch of the view offered by Nishitani and Heidegger of the state
of European philosophy at the beginning of Nishida's and Husserl's careers.
4 S
THE NOTION OF REALITY IN NISHIDA AND NISHITANI
During the last years of the nineteenth century Western philosophy had
just experienced the overthrow ofthe idealistic systems. The end ofHegelian-
type metaphysics was thus the context within which the philosophical activity
of those days tried to find a new configuration. Such a situation opened the
path for the rise of positivistic thought. The humanities attempted to emu-
late the exactness of natural sciences, so that philosophy was forced to
redefine itself according to the empírica! standards of the scientific method.
And thus appeared philosophy's ambition to become a "rigorous science,"
based on the "facts" of experience rather than on the "empty concepts" of
metaphysical speculation. One result was that psychology separated itself
from the field of philosophy in arder to become a completely empírica! sci-
ence, a physiology ofthe "psyche" investigating "interna! sensations" and the
life of the mind through methods of experimental observation defined
according to "objective realities." Then, through an inversion of the tradi-
tional hierarchy, scientific psychology attempted to recreate philosophy as
one of its applications. Logic also had to be explained in terms of psycholog-
ical processes.
Attempting to balance the imperialism of speculative objectivism and the
positivistic sciences were a number of initiatives such as Neo-Kantian anti-
psychologism, Dilthey's formulation of an autonomous understanding oflife,
and Kierkegaard's affirmation of subjective existence. One issue in particular
tended to take an increasingly central position: the status of consciousness, a
phenomenon common to the natural sciences, human sciences, and meta-
physical speculation.
Such was the historical situation of philosophy at the turn of the century.
And, following Nishitani's interpretation, Nishida's contribution to philoso-
phy must be seen in relation to it. Husserlian phenomenology, born in exactly
the same context, is similarly oriented: in both cases there is an attempt to
find a unity of consciousness preceding the specification of knowledge into
particular sciences, an attempt to find a level of experience that is pretheoret-
ical because it is foundational to the theoretical. The problem is to overcome
the "crisis ofEuropean sciences" by discovering that which is prior to the var-
ious methods of investigation, using an approach that redefines their presup-
positions in arder to uncover their foundational dimension.
In both cases the problem is to go back to "the things themselves." This
implies an attempt to find a leve! of consciousness that is still undifferentiated
from the reality to which it endeavors to find access. But whereas Husserl
 STEVENS
sought to establish a phenomenology capable of founding both natural sci-
ences and human sciences (by uncovering a more original leve! of access to
reality, which he called "intentionality"), Nishida, with his notion of junsui
keiken, attempted to establish an experience that is still undifferentiated and
thus capable of founding not only the sciences but also the tradicional disci-
plines of metaphysics and religion.
Moreover, Nishida's thought, in comparison with the logicism of the early
Husserl, is not totally opposed to psychologism. In Nishida's view there were
reasons for the establishment of psychology as an empirical science, just as
there were for the appearance of the notion of "pure experience." Nishida, as
we know, borrowed this latter concept from the psychologism of William
James, but with the intention of liberating it from the antimetaphysical atti-
tude that psychologism shared with logicism, and then of using it to investi-
gate the secular questions of metaphysics. Indeed, aside from his discussion
of psychologism, Nishida's thought is essentially concerned with the funda-
mental questions of the German idealists (Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Fichte ),
which he tries to reappropriate from the ruins of speculative metaphysics.
The positivistic context-which Nishitani describes elsewhere as a major
aspect of modern nihilism-meant the total rejection of any metaphysics, any
transcendence, be it in the form of Kantian a priori categories, of Hegelian
conceptualism, of the Platonic intelligible world, or of religious belief in sorne
other dimension. As Nishitani clearly explains, positivism emphasized observ-
able facts to the exclusion of any other reality. The access to the metaphysi-
cal dimension was thus closed. Such a dichotomy seemed to put an end to
traditional philosophy's capacity to offer a unified vision of man and the
world.
Thus, in Nishitani's eyes, the task of the philosopher was-and is-to over-
come the opposition between positivism (psychologism, scientism, and sci-
entific socialism) and metaphysics (idealism, existentialism, and the religious
attitude ). The state of the Zeitgeist needed a philosophy capable of standing
solidly on the ground of pure experience while offering new answers to the
fundamental questions of metaphysics, religion, and human existence in gen-
eral, and doing this without falling into tradicional scholastic metaphysics.
So-as Nishitani puts it-since philosophy was incapable of responding to
the positivistic challenge and positivism was incapable of thinking philosoph-
ically, Nishida wished to establish a metaphysically oriented standpoint that
at the same time would maintain a footing in experience and facticity.
6 7
THE NOTION OF REALITY IN NISHIDA AND NISHITANI
Nishitani writes, "A standpoint that was metaphysical and yet empiricist,
that maintained ti es with God without departing from the actual world of fact,
was almost unthinkable in the West" (NK, p. 71). And that is precisely what
Nishida endeavored to create as early as Zen no kenkyü,where he strove todo
justice to both the contemplative life of religious ontology and the positive facts
of empirical sciences. Such an attitude was bold in its novelty and yet at the
same time was in accordance with ancient Buddhist tradition, since Buddhism
offers an individual morality and spirituality based on facts of self-experience,
and free from any type of scholastic metaphysical speculation or rigidified reli-
gious dogma (see RADAKRISHNAN 1929, pp. 342ff.). Thus the point ofNishi-
da's philosophy that was most novel vis-a-vis modern Western thought was
the same point that linked it with the most profound tradition of the East.
It was also the point at which Nishida, perhaps unconsciously, practiced
what Nishitani describes elsewhere as "the self-overcoming of nihilism."
Indeed, if the positivistic spiritual void is a major aspect of contemporary
nihilism, standing on the ground of this void ( the positivistic notion of pure
experience itself) in order to transcend it and uncover the ontological princi-
pie of true reality (be it called "the unconscious unif)ring force," "the place
of nothingness," or "emptiness") appears to be what Nishitani is referring to
when he speaks of "overcoming nihilism through nihility" so that one might
reach the emptiness that transcends it and rediscover the suchness of reality.
The Ontological Leve!
However, it is not only Nishida's work with consciousness, experience, and
reality on the epistemological, psychological, and transcendentallevels that is
of particular significance, but also his contributions in the area of fundamen-
tal ontology.
Nishida defines th~ "principie" (ri lJ.) common to consciousness and real-
ity as an "unconscious unif)ring force" ( muishiki toitsu ryoku ?!lli!l.~~Ux- ::tJ ).
This principle-which in later works Nishida related to the notion of noth-
ingness (m u ?!lli) and place (basho ~Pff )-is the ontological background that
enables the union of the self with the absolute, which is the ultima te goal of
religious experience. The manner in which Nishida expresses the nature of ri
reveals his thought to be a late heir of the traditional Eastern search for such
a religious union (the classical example of which is the union of atman and
brahman in ancient Indian spirituality).
 STEVENS
Furthermore, Nishida's discourse enables the reader to establish a relation
between two ontological philosophers whose significance Heidegger has
shown to be decisive in the historical (geschichtlich) becoming of Western
ontology: Aristotle and Leibniz (see HEIDEGGER 19 31).
By establishing in this way a possible relationship between the spiritual tra-
dition of the East and the ontological tradition of the West, Nishida enables
what one might call a reactualization of the antique "giant's battle for being"
(gigantomachia peri tes ousias). Indeed, the "giant's battle for being," to
which Plato refers in The Sophist, concerned the definition of the "beingness"
( ousia) of nature (physis). The "foreigner" in Plato's dialogue realizes that the
concept of being ( on) is not so easy to define once one accepts the fact that
"nonbeing" (me on) of sorne type must be posited if one is to explain the
ontological defect of a pseudo-being (such as, for example, the discourse of
the sophist himself). Thus in attempting, with the aid of sorne historical ret-
rospection, to go a step further in defining being, he realizes that there is a
type of intellectual "battle" between those who, like the Ionians, view being
as something that is "becoming" (genesis) and "moving" (kinesis), and those
who, like the Parmenidians, view it as a kind of immutable "essential being-
ness" (ousia). And both sides claim that the ontological principie (genesis,
kinesis, or ousia) "is." So, asks the foreigner, what is the meaning ofthis "is"
(estin)? What is the Being (einai) that it ~xpresses? Is it an additional princi-
pie of sorne kind? Does it precede all other types of ontological principies, or
perhaps include them?
Actually, concludes the foreigner, we thought we knew the meaning of
being, but we realize that in fact we do not and "we have fallen into trou-
ble." This sentence in Plato's The Sophist (244a) is quoted by Heidegger in
the famous opening of Sein und Zeit. 5 Heidegger's effort can be seen as an
effort to reopen the "battle" (i.e., the discussion) on the question of being
after almost two millennia of onto-theo-logical substantialistic speculation
(since, in Heidegger's view, Western metaphysics as a whole has developed
the meaning of being as ousia, understood by means of the Aristotelian
hupokeimenon, thus giving it a substantialistic dimension that obliterares its
5 "Denn offenbar seid ihr doch schon lange mit dem vertraut, was ihr eigentlich meint, wenn
ihr den Ausdruck 'seind' gebraucht, wir jedoch glaubten es einst zwar zu verstehen, jetzt sind wir
in Verlegenheit gekommen." Haben wir heute eine Antwort auf die Frage nach dem, was wir mit
dem Wort 'seiend' eigentlich meinen. Keineswegs. Und so gilt es denn, die Frage nach dem Sinn
von Sein erneut zu stellen. (HEIDEGGER 1927, p.l)
8 9
THE NOTION OF REALITY IN NISHIDA AND NISHITANI
"dynamic" essence). In his Nietzsche, Heidegger explicitly speaks of the
urgent necessity of reactualizing such a gigantomachia peri tes ousias in light
of the invading nihilism of the times.
This growing nihilism is, indeed, partly dueto the incapacity to conceptu-
alize being as such, the understanding of which presupposes an experience of
nothingness (das Nichts). In his own effort to rethink the essential meaning
of being in relationship with the experience of nothingness, Heidegger stresses
the necessity of reaching beyond the traditional substantialistic interpretation
of Aristotle's ousia and uncovering the basic meaning of being as dynamis
(power, force, or potentiality to become)-which is the fundamental mean-
ing of physis, the initial si te of the ontological questioning of the Greeks.
In his effort to reappropriate Aristotle's "dynamic" ontology, Heidegger
underlines the importance of a mediation through the Leibnizian notion of
"force" (vis). And this is where Nishida's "unconscious unif)ring force" comes
into the picture. Nishida explains that this force is that by which conscious-
ness comprises a manifestation of reality in general. This unif)ring force,
which expresses, altogether, the activity of consciousness and the fundamen-
tal essence of the universe, is explicitly compared to Leibniz's manad, while
the Aristotelian "dynamic" background is also hinted at (and clearly empha-
sized in Nishitani's interpretation ofNishida [NK, pp. 35ff., 86ff., 130]). At
the same time Nishida links it to the Buddhist and pre-Buddhist concepts of
iitman and aniitman and their relation to brahman.
So, when seen from the perspective of the Kyoto school, Heidegger's
effort to overcome the substantialist interpretation of Aristotelian ontology in
favor of a more dynamic one was not simply a way to favor the Ionian (Her-
aclitean) interpretation of physis over the Parmenidain ousia. Its significance
was that it enabled a dialogue between Western metaphysics and the rela-
cional ontology of Eastern spirituality (particularly Madhyamika thought),
where substance is reduced to relations between elements whose very exis-
tence depends on such a relacional situation. And when, later, Nishida saw
Leibniz's "force" as mediating this reappropriation ofthe dynamic dimension
of being, he also underlined the "willing" or "desiring" aspect of this force
(its appetitio). Attempts to uncover the metaphysical principle of any Bud-
dhist-inspired Weltanschauung (or even pre- Buddhist Weltanschauung, since
this principle reaches back to the Vedanta and can be found in the Vedantic-
inspired philosophy of Schopenhauer as much as in Nishida) invariably
rediscover the same characteristics: that consciousness ( ishiki ~j~) is will (ishi
 STEVENS
:f:Z: ), that will is pulsional ( shodoteki i!riM9 ), and that this pulsion is to be
found at the heart ofreality (jitsuzai) (ZK, p. 19, IG, p. 8).
Concerning this dimension of will, desire, or pulsion in original being
("original" in the sense both of "fundamental" and "initial"), I cannot resist
quoting this beautiful passage of the Rigveda (cited by David J. Kalupahana
in his remarkable study, A History of Buddhist Philosophy [KALUPAHANA
1992 ]), where archaic Indian thought seems to have expressed in one pure
intuition what we are now trying to rediscover quite clumsily through our
commentary of Nishida, Heidegger, and the Greeks:
l) Not nonexistent was it nor existent was it at that time: there
was not atmosphere nor the heavens which are beyond. What
existed? Where? In whose care? Water was it? An abyss
unfathomable?
2) Neither mortal was there nor immortal then; not of night, of
day was there distinction: That alone breathed windless
through inherent power. Other than That indeed there was
naught else.
3) Darkness it was, by darkness hidden in the beginning: an
undistinguished sea was al! this. The germ of all things which
was enveloped in void, That alone through the power of
brooding thought was born.
4) Upon That in the beginning arose desire, which was the first
offshoot of that thought. This desire sages found out ( to be)
the link between the existent and non -existent, after search-
ing with the wisdom in their heart.
5) Straight across was extended their line of vision: was That
below, was That above? Seedplacers there were, powers there
were: potential energy below, impulse above.
6) Who, after al!, knows? Who here will declare-arase whence
this world? Subsequent are the gods to the creation of this
world. Who, then, knows whence it carne into being?
7) This world-whence it carne into being, whether it was made
or whether not-He who is its overseer in the highest heav-
ens surely knows-or perhaps He knows not!
(KALUPAHANA 1992, p. 4)
lO
THE NOTION OF REALITY IN NISHIDA AND NISHITANI
The Manifestation of God
It would necessitate a long study to establish the possible links between the
Sanskrit notion of brahman and the Greek notion of physis. There is an ety-
mological link that people like Heinrich Zimmer, Emile Benveniste, and
Pierre Aubenque have proven (ZIMMER 1951; BENVENISTE 1966; AUBENQUE
1989). But to prove the philosophicallink on the leve! of ontological mean-
ing is a much more difficult task. And this is where Nishida provides an inter-
esting possibility: his notion of God, which, as indicated by the previous
ontological considerations, is closer to the Greek notions of physis and
dynamis than to the Christian notion of a personal and transcendent God.
Nishida describes God as an Absolute that is immanent to the reality of the
universe as a whole; God is defined as the "foundation of the universe" ( uchü
no konpon +íil O):j'~* ), and the universe is described as the "manifestation of
God" (ka mi no hyogen 1$ O)~)Ji.) rather than the creation of God.
Furthermore, the relation of man to God is not described as sorne face to
face interpersonal dialogue; but as a. reappropriation by man of his essential
divine nature: God is perceived at the most profound leve! of the true self. To
determine the extent to which this notion is a continuation of the antique
search for authentic iitman would require extensive research, as would the
question of the extent to which the Buddhist ethical quest is a continuation
of its predecessor in the Vedantic tradition. But Nishida gives clear indica-
tions that he saw his own thought to be a continuation of such a spiritual
quest and, moreover, to be in deep communion with Christian spirituality
(particularly as it was expressed by the mystics of the Renaissance ):
There is a fundamental spiritual principie at the base of reality, and
this principie is God. This idea accords with the fundamental truth
of Indian religicn: Atman and Brahman are identical. God is the
great spirit of the universe .... An infinite power is hidden even in
our small chests that are restricted by time and space; the infinite
unitying power of reality is latent in us. Possessing this power, we
can search for the truth of the universe in learning, we can express
the true meaning of reality in art, and we can know the foundation
of reality that forms the universe in the depth of our hearts-we can
grasp the true fa ce of God. The infinitely free activity of the human
heart proves God directly. As Jakob Boehme said, we see God with
a "reversed eye" (umgewandtes Auge) .... The religion of India of
ll
 STEVENS THE NOTION OF REALITY IN NISHIDA AND NISHITANI

the distant past and the mysticism that flourished in Europe in the ZK Zen no kenkyü :¡'g.O).fiJf~. Nishida Kitar6 1!983~::;1.\::~~, 1950 (1995).
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries sought God in intuition realized in Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
the inner soul, and this I consider to be the deepest knowledge of
God. In what form does God exist? From one perspective, taken by
such thinkers as Nicholas of Cusa, God is all negation, whereas that References cited
which can be affirmed or grasped is not God. (ZK, p. 120; IG, pp. AuBENQUE, Pierre
80-81)
1989 Ontologie. Encyclopédie philosophique universelle, vol. 1, pp. ll-16.
So, although Nishida's notion of God seems far removed from the Chris- París: Presses Universitaires de France.
tian notion of a transcendent and personal Creator of the universe, it is in BENVENISTE, Emile
Nishida's view quite close to that of sorne great Christian mystics. He also 1966 Problemes de linguistique générale. París: Gallimard.
describes Godas "the great personality at the base ofthe universe" (kami wa HEIDEGGER, Martin
uchü no konteitaru ichidaijinkaku de aru t$1;t+iJO);fJl!J!.H::.O-*)\.l~"t"i.fJ.O, 1924 Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs. Gesamtausgabe 20.
ZK, p. 225; IG, p. 161). Frankfurt-am-Main: Klostermann.
This, of course, depends on the understanding one has of "personality." 1927 Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (reprinted in 1977)
In this case, I guess, it is something that reveals itselfwhen the ego-centered
1931 Aristoteles. Metaphysik 7heta 1-3. Gesamtausgabe 33. Frankfurt-am-
person (jiga § :flt) is negated (muga $.1i:f.lt) to uncover the true selfless self (jiko Main: Klostermann. ( reprinted in 1981)
§C. )-thus revealing what Nishitani refers to as "the real self-awareness of
1935 Einfuerung in die Metaphysik. Frankfurt-am-Main: Klostermann.
reality" (jitsuzai no jitsuzaitekina jikaku ~ÜO)~;¡'féf.J§:lt). The personality (reprinted in 1985)
of God is thus the "self'' of the universe. It is-as stressed by Nishitani (NK,
1961 Nietzsche. 2 vols. Pfullingen: Gunther Neske Verlag.
p. 154)-the dimension of spirituality (intellectual intuition, freedom, and
!ove) that unfolds from the standpoint of the true self in pure experience. In KALUPAHANA, David J.
order to have a clear grasp of this notion of personality one has to stand at 1992 A History of Buddhist Philosophy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press.
the point where the ground of "pure experience" coincides with the onto-
logical dimension of the "unconscious unif)ring force." Such a personality is NISHIDA Kitar6 1§83~::;1.\::J'!~
(in a concept later developed by Nishitani) an "impersonal personality" 1950 (1995) Zen no kenkyü ~O)líJf~. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
(hijinkakuseiteki jinkakusei ~PAtMíéf.JAtHI:; RN part 2), that enables the 1990 An Inquiry into the Good. English translation of Zen no kenkyü by
"egoless" person to express the basic universal virtues of agape and karu1Jii. Masao Abe and Christopher Ives. New Haven: Yale University Press.
NISHITANI Keiji f§t¡:.Jg:ifi
Abbreviations 1961 Shükyo to wa nanika *fXt¡ ;t1líJ1.P. Tokyo: Sobunsha. Tokyo: Sobun-
sha.
IG An Inquiry into the Good. Abe Masao and Christopher Ives, 1990. 1982 Religion and Nothingness. Translated by Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley:
New Haven: Yale University Press. University of California Press.
NK Nishida Kitaro: Sono hito to shiso 1!983~::t::.l'm--t-O)Ác.\!U~.. Nishitani 1985 Nishida Kitaro: Sono hito to shiso 1!983~::;1.\::!'!~--fO))\.c.\!:1, ~. Tokyo:
Keiji, 1985. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo. Chikuma Shobo.
RN Religion and Nothingness. Translated by Jan Van Bragt, 1982. Berke- 1991 Nishida Kitaro. English translation of Nishida Kitaro: Sono hito to
ley: University of California Press. shiso by Yamamoto Seisaku and James W. Heisig. Berkeley: Universi-
SN Shükyo to wa nanika. Nishitani Keiji @t¡:.Jg:iá, 1961. Tokyo: Sobunsha. ty of California Press.

12
13
~ STEVENS

POERTNER, Peter and Jens HEISE Nishida's Philosophy of Religion

1995 Die Philosophie Japans. Stuttgart: Kroener.
RADAKRISHNAN' S. A Religious Philosophy
1929 Indian Philosophy, volume l. London: George Allen and Unwin.
ZrMMER, Heinrich MICHIKO YUSA
1951 The Philosophies of India. Edited by Joseph Campbell. Bollingen
Series 26. New York: Pantheon.

Nishida developed his logic of topos into a philosophy of religion, dubbing it the
cctheology of the logic of topos.» This philosophy of religion incorporated his
understanding of Western philosophies of religions, as well as of the religious
experiences of human beings in both the East and the West. Nevertheless, it
must be admitted that,fundamentally, Nishida cast the problem according to
the Buddhist worldview of emptiness, while drawing from his experience ofZen
practice. In this sense his philosophy of religion may be called a Buddhist phi-
losophy of religion, a fact that does not, however, exclude or negate Christian
spirituality and its experience of the divine.
One can thus argue that his philosophy of religion is in fact neither Buddhist
nor Christian but universal; it may also be argued that as such it is truly Bud-
dhist, in that it empties conventional categories and affirms the reality of all-
embracing compassion as the basis ofhuman society. The basic insight contained
in his logic of topos being already in line with the wisdom traditions of the
world, his philosophy of religion is informed by a nondualistic mode of dis-
course that discusses the relationship between the individual and the world,
and between humanity and God. Whether it is his philosophy of religion or his
other philosophical thou!Jft, Nishida's speculation always has the characteristic
of ccreligious philosophy. » It treats humans essentially as religious beings; it also
has the existential power to move and console the reader. This salvific power comes,
I believe, from the very source of Nishida}s person: a deep and expansive spir-
itual awareness and sincerity in which he not only lived but also philosophized.

T rs WELL KNOWN that Nishitani Keiji "@~§iá chose Kyoto Imperial Uni-
I versity over the more prestigious Tokyo Imperial University for the sole
reason that the philosopher Nishida Kitaro "@133~~Ii!~ was teaching there.
While a student at the First Higher School in Tokyo, 1 Nishitani had come

1
In the prewar education system the "higher schools" began as three-year national institutions
designed to prepare students for the imperial universities. Five such schools were established under

15
14
 YUSA
across a copy of Nishida's Shisaku to taiken .\!:t ~ tf*M¿ (Philosophical
reflection and direct experience] ( 1915 )2 and been deeply moved by sorne of
the essays contained in it. It was the late summer of 1919; Nishitani had
finished his first year at the higher school and had just returned to Tokyo
from a summer vacation spent at the home of a friend in Shinshü. "In those
days Nishida's name was not known to the general public, and I was no
exception, but be cause the title of the book appealed to m y youthful fancy I
bought it and took it home," recalls Nishitani (NrSHITANI 1985, p. 4). Philo-
sophical essays at the beginning of the book totally eluded the comprehen-
sion of this higher school student who had yet to be initiated into the rigors
of philosophical training, but the essays towards the end of the book deeply
moved him. Concerning those essays Nishitani writes:
They struck me as more familiar than anything I had read or than
anyone I knew. There was something qualitatively different about
them. This sense of familiarity seemed to well up from m y very soul.
I'm not saying, of course, that I could have written the same thing.
No. It's that I didn't feel the essays were written by someone wholly
unrelated to me .... When we think about it, it is not so easy to be
truly "oneself'; this being the case, it is possible that others are in
fact closer than we are to who we really are. It is the greatest bless-
ing and good fortune indeed to encounter such a person. (NISHI-
TANI 1985,pp.4-5)
Nishitani goes on to explain that what happened to him was quite unex-
pected, because it was not in conformity with the trend of the times. Granted,
the issue of self-identity, or of how to establish one's individual self, was a
majar concern ofTaisho intellectuals, but Nishitani-then preoccupied with
personal health-related problems-was somewhat immune to the issues that
consumed his generation (NISHITANI 1985, p. 8). He felt that Nishida's
approach towards establishing individuality was different from those of pop-
ular writers like Abe Jiro ~iiJ'&B.::X~B (1883-1959)\ and saw greater similarities
the Education Ordinance promulgated by Mori Arinori, Minister of Education, in 1886. The
Revised Education Ordinance of 1918 allowed the establishment of new higher schools, both pub·
lic and privare, and by 1926 the number of higher schools had increased to thirty-four.
2 The first edition was published by Senshokan + ~ íil on lO March 1915. The Iwanami edi-
tion carne out on 18 May 1919. Nishitani says he got hold ofthe first edition.
3 no nikki =:::t: ~~Q)B ~c [Diary of Santaro] (1914 ), which was immensely popular among higher
Abe was a student of Raphael von Koeber at Tokyo Imperial University and closely associated
16
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
in the thought of the Meiji-era novelist Natsume Soseki :ll[ §if}::fi
(1867-1916). For Nishitani this difference between his generation and that
ofNatsume and Nishida boiled clown toa difference in the direction taken in
the search for the self:
In their search for the self, Natsume Soseki and Nishida pro-
ceeded forward from within the center of the self instead of lapsing
into an inward spiral regression, as our generation of writers di d. In
the latter case, the deeper the self delved into itself the more con-
fused it became, until finally one lost sight of the self... and was left
open to nihility .... In contrast, Soseki's and Nishida's approach
began with the self as center, then took a forward leap towards
something beyond the self-something for the self to base itself
upon-and sought the "self' there. That is to say, their approach
broke through the self at the center of the self and located the
so urce of the self in the deeper inner realm that transcends the self.
This was more than just "cultivation" (kyoyo fx~), because, on a
deeper leve!, it was religious and quest-like in nature (shukyoteki
gudoteki *fX893R~IrJ ); it was something not merely intellectual but
radically volitional. Perhaps Soseki and Nishida were able to main-
tain this attitude because they stood within the spiritual tradition of
the East. And it may have been that this tradicional spirit, imbibing
deeply of the Western spirit flowing into J apan, carne to flower as
the establishment of the individual self ( the problem of the estab-
lishment of the self having been of fundamental importan ce to the
Japanese since the beginning of the Meiji Period). (NISHITANI
1985,pp.9-10)
Despite the generation gap that existed between his own generation and
that of Natsume and Nishida, Nishitani found a viable direction in Nishida's
writings, a road sign that he was to follow.
Kosaka Masaaki j\§'j:f:&iHJí (1900-1969), one year ahead of Nishitani at
Kyoto Imperial University, was similarly inspired by Nishida:
Whenever we were in the presence of Professor Nishida what
impressed me the most was the sense that "here is the spring ofliving
with Natsume Soseki and the members of the "Thursday Group" (Mokuyokai *lli f< ). His Santaro
school students, defined the tone of self-search and self-identity in a narcissistic manner.
17
 YUSA
life" (koko ni wa ikita seimei no izumi ga aru .::.::¡.:¡;t'f:.~t.:'f:.~O)
;l]t 1.1r il? .O). As I returned home after discussions at the professor's
house I would find my debilitated soul resuscitated and my confidence
in life restored. I felt the consolation of philosophy at work. (KOSAKA
1948, p. 6)
Nishida's Zen no kenkyü ~O)M'JE [An inquiry into the good] (1911) hada
comparable impact on young Kurata Hyakuz6 i"B3a=: (1891-1943), who,
driven by his existencial questions, called upon Nishida on 18 September 1912,
in arder to get sorne advice and guidance from the latter. 4 Unfortunately for
Kurata, Nishida was not impressed by this higher school student; years later,
when Kurata had become a successful writer idolized by students, Nishida
told his son Sotohiko 9i-& not to emulate him because Kurata lacked, in
Nishida's view, a will of iron. 5 But, judging from the fact that Kurata visited
Nishida at his house in Kamakura twice in February 1929,6 the philosopher's
criticism of this gifted writer must have been kept strictly within the family.
The Source of Nishida)s Philosophical Contemplation
What attracted youngsters like Nishitani and Kurata to Nishida was,
undoubtedly, what Nishitani called the attitude of "religious quest" (gudii
;!(~) they found in him. Indeed, by 1915 Nishida already hada decade of
Zen practice "under his belt"; he had attained a significant leve! of awaken-
ing, well beyond the initial breakthrough (kenshii ~:tí) that he had experi-
enced in August 1903. The insight he gained through his Zen practice, along
with the suffering he underwent owing to the deaths of several people very
clase to hiin, shaped and reshaped his person. Sorne events that challenged
his emotional-spiritual strength were the death of his younger brother,
Hyojiro !~:X~~' during the siege ofPort Arthur in August 1904; the death by
illness of his second daughter, Yüko ~-=f, in January 1907; and the death of
his closest friend, Fujioka Sakutar6 ~ lililf'F:k~~ (or Toho JI:!: ti), in February
191 O. In each case Nishida suffered deeply, only to come out of the loss a lit-
de more mature, a little less selfish, and with an expanded awareness of the
workings of the divine power ( tariki ft!!1J) or "fa te" that was beyond his con-
4 Nishida's diary, 8 September 1912 (NI<Z 17:298).
5 The terms jiriki and tariki cannot be rendered in a univoca! way. In another place Nishida
Nishida's letter, 15 August 1922 (NI<Z 18:252).
6 Nishida's diary, 2 and 17 February 1929 (NI<Z 17:452).
18
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
trol and could not be affected by his personal exertions (jiriki §1J). 7
When Nishida began serious Zen practice he initially felt a conflict
between his scholarly study (gakumon ~r,9) and the spiritual quest (do ~ ),
but eventually the latter prevailed, so much so that he could think of noth-
ing else until he found an answer to his search. In his letter of 16 July 1901
to Yamamoto Ryokichi Llr~&'S (or Chosui ~7k), Nishida noted, "I'm so con-
stantly preoccupied with the question of my own spirituality (jiko no reisei
mondai El C. 0)1&ttr..9~) that [ unless I attain sorne solution] I don 't feel I will
have enough energy or courage to do anything in the outside world .... Apart
from the usual scholarly and moral discussions there must be a spiritual fact
(reiseijo no jijitsu 1&1í...t.O):J".~) that, however much one may beat or pull it,
will not budge an inch. Lacking this, how uninteresting life would be!" 8
When we consider the many years of Nishida's serious engagement in
finding and establishing his "true self," it is not surprising that his philo-
sophical writings and personal essays reflect something of the spiritual
strength and wisdom that he gained through his practice of Zen. He did not
start writing extensively until well after he felt comfortable with what he
wrote; it had to come from his "center" and not just from his head. But of
course it was not his intention to proselytize or spread his "spiritual mes-
sage." He wrote strictly as a philosopher, devoid of any evangelical interest.
Nevertheless, its deep mner source marked his thought with a clear stamp. It
is undoubtedly this spiritual quality that continues to render his thought
appealing, enabling it to cross the boundaries of culture, religion, and time.
To identify Nishida's philosophical source as informed by religious insight
(and more specifically, Zen insight) is not to disparage his philosophical rigor
or dismiss his efforts to evaluare critically the work of Western thinkers. He
was a voracious reader, someone gifted with an uncanny ability to intuit the
presence, or lack, of originality in each philosopher whose works he encoun-
tered. His rule of thumb was to check the footnotes-if a thinker was quoted
by another reputable thinker it was a good sign that the former's work was
worth examining. In this way Nishida identified majar Western thinkers and
explored their writings, although he himself (unlike most of his colleagues
and many of his students) never had the opportunity to travel abroad.
7
explains jiriki as the power of the egoless self.
8
Nishida's letter, 15 July 1901 (NI<Z 18.56).
19
 YUSA
Nishida, in short, paid close attention to the activities of contemporary
Western thinkers. Indeed, he was among the first Japanese to take notice of
Bergson and in Husserl, and is in fact credited with having introduced
Husserl to Japanese students of philosophy (NITTA, TATEMATSU, and SrMO-
MISE 1979, p. 8). For example, from a 1914letter to Tanabe Hajime EB:ill5C
r (1885-1962) we learn that he was familiar with a work ofHusserl that had
appeared in the 1913 ]ahrbuch für philosophische und phanomenologische
Forschung (most likely Husserl's "Ideen zu einer rinen Phanenomenologie
und phanomenologische Philosophie"); this was over twenty years befare it
was translated into Japanese. 9 He was also in the ha bit of purchasing philo-
sophical books from abroad as soon as they were available, which, it is said,
caused no small financia! woe to his family (already in 1916 Nishida had a
copy of the third edition of Rickert's Gegenstand der Erkenntnis, less than a
year after its publication in 1915 10 ). His attention was focused on the masters
of the past as well. He advised young Tanabe to read Plato and Augustine as
writers who "deserve deep appreciation," and also recommended Spinoza
and Leibniz. 11 He also held it an ideal for any philosopher to be conversant
with new developments in mathematics and physics. 12
Nishida's philosophical system was shaped on the one hand by his natural
powers of intuition, his Zen experience, and his cultural sensibility, and, on
the other, by his assiduous philosophical engagement with the works oflead-
ing Western thinkers both ancient and modern. Likewise, his philosophy of
religion was a product of his dialogue with past and present theologians,
Western philosophers, scholars of Religionswissenschaft, Zen masters, and
Christian colleagues and mystics. Nishida learned much from the Western
discipline of the philosophy of religion, which aided him in formulating his
own philosophy of religion.
9 Nishida's letter to Tanabe Hajime, 1 January 1914 (NKZ 19 :507 ); also 4 September 1915
(NKZ 19:525 ). This work ofHusserl's was translated into Japanese in 1937. Although Nishida
appreciated Husserl's precise philosophical methodology and felt that Japanese thinkers had much
~
to learn from his approach (Nishida's letter to Tanabe Hajime, 12 July 1915 [NKZ 19:524]), he
remained critica! of Husserl's phenomenological stance and his interpretation of consciousness as
intentionality (shikosei ¡¡l;.(<i]tl. ). Nishida wished to base his philosophical enquiry on an investiga-
tion of the self-reflective nature (jikakusei El '1!:11.) of consciousness (NKZ 5:454).
10
Nishida's letter to Tanabe Hajime, 10 March 1916 (NKZ 19 :529 ).
11 Nishida's letter to Tanabe Hajime, 4 August1917 (NKZ 19:541 ).
12
Nishida's letter to Tanabe Hajime, 3 August 1914 (NKZ 19:515 ).
20
N!SHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Nishida and Religionswissenschaft
Nishida was put in charge of teaching an introductory course on religious
studies (shukyógaku *~X ~ ) the academic year of 1913-14, his fourth year of
teaching at Kyoto Imperial University. Contrary to what one might expect,
he was not particularly pleased with this assignment. Although he was a pro-
foundly religious man, his primary interest at that time was in establishing
himself as a philosopher, and notas a scholar of religion. He was devoting most
of his energy to the study of epistemology and logic in order to hone his
philosophical skills, which he applied to writing the series of articles "Jikaku
ni okeru chokkan to hansei" El Ji: f::liH J' J.>illJH:oc 1i¡j' [Intuition and reflection
in self-consciousness] (1913-17) . In these articles he engaged the questions
and criticisms of other philosophical minds. Moreover, such scholars as
Anezaki Masaharu Mi~tflEl'Éi were already at the forefront ofthe study ofreli-
gion, and Nishida probably felt it best to leave the matter to the specialists. JI ,
The study of religion, Religionswisssenschaft, was initially introduced to Japan
as part of the field of philosophy and la ter as an independent discipline. When {j
Nishida was a student at the Imperial University in Tokyo, 1891-94, Inoue
Tetsujir6 # J::.11'f.:j¡:fl~ taught a course on comparative religion and Oriental
philosophy (hikaku shukyó to tóyó tetsugaku .J:tf2 * ~xc JIU!f: 11'í' ~ ), which was a
precursor of the study of religion. Anezaki succeeded Inoue and taught reli-
gion as a lecturer from 1898 to 1900, then was dispatched to Europe in 1900
for three years. 13 In 1904, upon his return, he was appointed the first profes-
sor of religious studies at Tokyo Imperial University. Likewise, Matsumoto
Bunzabur6 t~:;j(::t =: fl~, Nishida's friend from higher-school days and his col-
league at the Kyoto Imperial University, studied under the Indologist and
Sanskrit scholar Albrecht Weber during his stay in Germany (1899-1902)
and was in charge of the religion program in Kyoto for a while.
By 1913, when Nishida was asked (by Matsumoto Bunzabur6, in fact) to
teach the religion course, Japanese academics were conversant with Western
scholarship in this field . Even so, the list of thinkers and books 14 Nishida
introduced to his students is impressive, and reveals the scope of his study:
13
In Germany he studied with Paul Deussen; he also carne to know H . Oldenberg and other
leading scholars. In London he studied with Rhys Davids. Following his return to Japan in 1903
he began teaching religion, and in the following year he was given the chair of the professor of
religion.
14
See Nishida's Shükyogaku >lH':k'lt [Lecture notes on religion] (NKZ 15 :221-381 ).
21
 YusA
Friedrich Schleiermacher' S Uber die Religion, Windelband's Praludien (on
the category of the Holy), Max Müller's Introduction to the Science of Reli-
gion, Ti ele' s Einleitung in die Religionswisssenschaft ( Gifford Lectures),
Cohen's Der Begriff der Religion in System der Philosophie, Hoffding's Reli-
gionsphilosophie, Otto Pfleiderer's Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher
Grundlage, James Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion,
Robertson Smith's Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental
Institutions, Lucien Uvy- Bruhl's La Morale et la Science des Moeurs, and, of
course, William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience (Gifford Lec-
tures )-just to mention a few of the works cited in his lectures.
In his lectures Nishida presented the central issues in the study of religion
( e.g., rituals, institutions, psychology, and the relation between religion and
culture) and in the study of the philosophy of religion (e.g., the proofs of God's
existence, the relation between religion and art, and the development of the
philosophy of religion). His lectures, arranged in six parts-"Introduction,"
"A History ofthe Study ofReligion," "Religious Demands," "Various Types
of Religion," "God," and "Humanity Enjoying the Light of Religion"-
greatly inspired his students. Among them were two second-year students,
Hisamatsu Shin'ichi 1--mJt- and Morimoto Koji ~;;f;:~rs (or Shonen 11:11:),
both of whom became deeply involved in Zen practice. Morimoto left the
academic world to become a monk and eventually a Zen master, while
Hisamatsu remained in the university and was appointed professor of Bud-
dhism at Kyoto Imperial University. Two first-year students, Okano Tome-
jiro lllillfffll.:.X!'I~ and Shinohara Sukeichi ill!Jli:WHn, probably took the course as
a general requirement. Other students who might have heard Nishida's lec-
tures on religion are Yamanouchi Tokuryü LlJ P'J f~ :iT., Katsube Kenzo Mflmtl:@,
Oikawa Eizaemon N.J11%::tLmr~, Osada Arata ~83~, and Takahashi Keiji
ji11jtií)l.jxt_~, although there is no record extant to substantiate this conjecture.
God and the World
1
; In his lectures on the study of religion, Nishida defines religion in terms of
the relationship between God and humanity. One may wonder why he brings
~~ the notion of God into the discussion, especially in view of the fact that Bud-
dhism is generally considered to have no God. "Of course," says Nishida,
"B uddhism [postulates] no God (k ami o motan u t$ H~ t..: t.;>.). Moreover,
modern idealism as found in such thinkers as Emerson considers God in an
\
22
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
abstract and idealized way. We must interpret the word 'God' or 'divine'
quite broadly" (NKZ 15:264). Nishida further considers the case of Zen,
j
which negates even Buddha (as the saying goes: "Ifyou meet the Buddha,
kili the Buddha"):
Certainly, there are religions that do not even think about the exis-
tence of God, and Zen Buddhism is one of them. Zen upholds the
identif)r of the mind (or consciousness) with Buddha. (But even if
Zen denies the existence of Buddha, the fact is that if there were
only humanity, or if there were only Buddha, there would be no
talk of religion.) In Christian mysticism Eckhart said, "If I believe
in God, there is no God." In these traditions there is no recogni-
tion of what we normally consider to be God ( God as the object of
worship and so forth), but in fact they acknowledge the presence of t
profound Divinity (fukaki kami i~~1$). (NKZ 15:224) 1
By "profound Divinity" Nishida undoubtedly means God beyond our ordinary,
objective mode of conceptualization. He sees religious plurality as arising out
j
of different ideas of what God is and different conceptions of the relationship
between God and humanity (NKZ 15:224).
Nishida's interpretive stance on religion embraces both Christianity and
Buddhism. He finds in these two religions identity rather than disparity.
Nineteenth-century Western scholarship tended to uphold a model of differ-
ence, considering "the fundamental difference between Buddhism and Chris-
tianity to lie in how one transcends the world." Nishida presents Hermann
Siebeck's view as one such example. Siebeck postulated two kinds of reli-
gions, "moral religions" and "religions of salvation," which Nishida recapit-
ulares as follows:
In Christianity, transcending the world does not mean fleeing from
it or from morality and the demands it imposes on humanity.
Humanity opens up its heart towards the will of God, establishes a
direct communication with this will, and thereby determines its
conduct. In Buddhism, it tries to leave [ dassuru HR. T .O] the world.
(NKZ 15.329)
In contrast to Siebeck, Nishida argues that for any religion to be authentic
and real it must bring together these two aspects, "morality" and "salvation."
Nishida's elaboration of this point touches on his view of religion:
23
 Y usA
In any authentic religion, we enter once into the absolutely selfless
state in our relationship to God, discard our egos, and take refuge in
God. This is the state of "release" (gedatsu MHR.). However, when
we reach the apex of this state, we break open into the dimension of
activity and arrive at the standpoint of"moral religion." The essence
of religion consists of our dying and subsequent rebirth. "Letting
go one's hold on the steep cliffso asto be reborn" [into a new self]
is the essence of religion. At this point, the two directions of moral-
ity and the attainment of salvation are brought into harmony.
There is no shortage of expressions for this kind of reality.
Kogun Kanemichi tlmJ::®, disciple of Zen master Hakuin á ~[l.,
expressed it in the following poem:
From the cliff,
Eight times ten thousand feet high,
Withdrawing your hand-
World burns,
Body becomes ashes and dirt,
And resurrects.
The rice-rows
Are as ever,
And the rice-ears
Stand high. 15
Bernard de Clairvaux (1090-1153)' 6 spoke offour degrees oflove.
At the first stage, humanity !oves itself for its own sake. At the sec-
15 Translation from SCHINZINGER1958 (p. 137). Nishida explains the meaning ofthis poem in
a letter to Kimura Motomori :>Mj~jl¡ (#1396; 30 November 1939 [NKZ 19:93-94]). Kimura,
Koyama Iwao i'llil1Jcfi:!l3, and Nakajima Ichiro <P,ll\\-f!B were collaborating with Robert Schinzinger
in translating works by Nishida into German, and were having difficulties interpreting this poem
quoted by Nishida. By incorporating Nishida's explanation, this verse can be translated, somewhat
prosaically, as:
When, in my despair [for not being able to become one with my koan], I'm about to
release m y grip from the top of the steep cliff I have been clinging to, all of a sudden
fire breaks out ofthe tip ofmy plow (as ifl had been cultivating the narrow top ofthe
cliff) and burns the entire universe. My body is completely reduced to ashes and then,
lo! I am reborn. When I look at the farm that I was tending befare, ripe heads of rice
plants are there as befare!
1') n e s na · figu ~-' " Born of a wealthy
Burgundian family, he joined the Cistercian monastic community at the age of twenty-two, and
24
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
ond stage, humanity !oves God but not for the sake of God but for
humanity itself. At the third stage, humanity !oves God for the sake
of God. At the fourth and the final stage, humanity !oves itself pre-
cisely for the sake of God. Such indeed is the relationship between
God and humanity. (NKZ 15:330).
As amply demonstrated in the above passage from his lecture notes on reli-
gion, Nishida's focus was on the way in which humanity and the Divine ínter-
relate. As such, it transcends the boundaries of Christianity and Buddhism; all
such labels as Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Greek Orthodox, Pure
Land Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism are "emptied out." In this sense, we
may cal! Nishida's approach "ecumenical" (beyond sectarianism) and
"catholic" (universal), and, at the same time, fundamentally Buddhist.
Indeed, Nishida is formulating a Buddhist philosophy of religion.
The Logic of Topos and the Wisdom Tradition
Nishida be an developing the "logic of topos'' (basho no ronri ~pJTO)¡¡j¡j:IJ_ in
arouna 1924 or 1925. t is necessary to mention here the existencial agonies
. that Nishida exp~ed as he faced the successive illnesses and deaths of sev-
era! members of his family. His mother died in 1918; the following year a
stroke left his wife bedridden; ayear later his eldest son, Ken, died of a sud-
den illness at the age of twenty-three. Two of his daughters contracted
typhoid and were hospitalized in 1922; the recovery of one of them was
extremely slow and almost left her crippled. Yet another daughter had suf-
fered from lung troubles since 1921.
These deeply painful circumstances, however, awakened him to the realiza-
tion that the deep recesses of his mind remained untouched-the mind was
like the deep sea, with the waves and foam on its surface forming but momen-
tary appearances. The unshakable reality of this mind struck Nishida, and he
carne toa clear recognition ofthe "real self'' or the "original face" he thought
he had known through his struggle with Zen koans two decades before. This
decisive awakening seems to have taken place in early 1923.
Nishida's renewed awareness of the reality of the "real self'' not only effected
an existencial release of his self from the yoke of ego-centered concern and
later was a regular correspondent with influential leaders of the days-kings, popes, and feudal
nobility. He was a charismatic spiritual mentor, anda clase friend to many (HOUSTON 1983, pp.
xiii-xxv, 154-61).
25
 YUSA
suffering but also opened up the new intellectual vista that he carne to express
in his philosophy of topos. Por him, logic, as that which gives structure to any
philosophical system, was of essential importance. He thus directed his awak-
ened mind to the formulation of this new kind oflogic. He was dissatisfied with
tradicional Western logic, holding that it did not take into account the pri-
mordial unity of subject and object, a unity that Nishida had been convinced
of sin ce his higher-school days and that he carne to know more deeply through
his Zen practice. He regarded as dogmatism the uncritical notion in the West
that the basis of logic líes in the subject-object dichotomy. Instead, he sought a
"logical form" that would do justice to the reality of conscious-self (jikakuteki
jiko § Jt89 §e.), a logical form that would embrace the thinkers themselves.
\1 Instead of trying to pinpoint "things" out there as the "objects" of our intel-
lectual scrutiny, or of trying to explain the cognitive process in terms of orga-
nizing the known object according to a priori categories, he focused on the
dynamic reality of self-awareness and self-reflection (jikaku § Jt ).
In so doing he admitted that he carne close to Fichte and the latter's idea
of Tathandlung (action-fact-the self in its self-reflection producing itself).
In the act of self-edif)ring self-reflection we regard our self as an object of
thought, despite the fact that the self cannot be made into an objective thing
"over there"-a contradiction in terms. Self-reflection takes place within us;
moreover, that which reflects and that which is reflected are contradictorily
one and the same, i.e., the conscious self. In time, however, Nishida arted
with Fichte on the latter's conce t of the Absolute E o · e-
sided to Nishida. His criticism of Fichte was that he did not develop the
"outer" (social and relacional) aspect of the Absolute Ego and remained
focused only on its "inner unity," thereby rendering it something of an ide-
alistic universal. That, held Nishida, would not explain the complex reality of
unique, irreducible individuality. 17
In his attempt to formulate the logic of topos Nishida took a hint from
Aristotle's definition of the grammatical subject as that which never becomes
the grammatical predicate. Nishida focused on the predicate aspect; in his
iew the self-conscious subject is that which predicates upon itself and which
speaks about itself, and as such it is already within the predica te ( or language,
as Heidegger would say). The subject, by virtue of its self-consciousness, is a
See Nishida's lecture "Genjitsu no sekai no ronriteki kózó" JJt~O)J!tJjfO)~Jll!i't:JtiJ:@; Shinano
17
Tetsugakukai Kóen, 7-9 January 1935 (NKZ 14:228).
26
NISHIDA'S PH!LOSOPHY OF RELIGION
self-narrating being. Nishida termed Aristotle's logic "grammatical-subject
oriented logic" in that it gave primacy to the grammatical subject ( conceived
objectively) of the judgment, S is P.
As for the Kantian logic of critique, Nishida never denied its value, but he
had to point out its potencial danger, namely, the tendency of thought to
reify what are simply concepts. Moreover, Nishida was not happy with the
tacit presupposition of the dichotomy of subject and object, the knower and
the known, that underlay Kant's logic. He called Kantian logic "objectif)ring
logic," in the sense that it discerns objects out there. In formulating his logic
of topos, Nishida clearly allied himself with the "wisdom" traditions of the
world, which invariably celebrate the unity of the knower and the known.
The negation of objectifying logic is expressed in the words neti neti ("not
this, not that") in the Upanishadic tradition, and in the form of the vía neg-
ativa (the "path of negation") in medieval Christian mysticism. In this sense
Nishida's philosophy of religion, the "theology of the logic of topos'' ( bashote-
ki ronri no shingaku ~?Jfé(]ij'~J:f0)1$~ [NKZ 11:399]), is squarely within the
wisdom tradition.
The Logic of Topos and the Philosophy of Religion
Precisely because Nishida regarded religious awareness as something highly
personal in nature, he felt that the only way to account for it was by way of
the logic of topos, the logic of self-conscious selves and the world. It was upon
this conviction that he based his philosophy of religion, the final formulation
ofwhich is found in his last completed essay, "Bashoteki ronri to shükyoteki
sekaikan" ~i'Jf8(]ij~J:fc*~x89iltW.n [The logic of topos and the religious
worldview] ( 1945 ). His philosophy of religion centers on the relationship of
individual humans to God, for it was his aim to clarify the "structure" of reli-
gious awareness. Indeed, it can even be speculated that his logic of topos was
initially co'nceived in and through his reflection on the reality of the "real
self' (shin no jiko J:l;O) §e.) that Zen Buddhism speaks of. It would not be
surprising if Nishida's inquiry moved in the following direction:
I see that there is a "larger self," the "original face" (honrai nomen-
moku ~* O)jE] El), beyond the reality of m y petty ego-ridden self.
What then is the logical relationship between this "larger self' and
the ego? M y ego (or ego-consciousness) comes out of the larger self ?
----------
(or pure consciousness) and returns to it from moment to moment.
27
 YusA
That must mean that my ego-self is within, i.e., embraced by, the
larger self. This "larger" self (taiga ::k~) is the topos (basho :tj}jfiff),
1 the matrix, in which our individual selves exist.
Nishida's philosophical world always included environment (be it nature
or society). But it was not until he sufficiently formulated the logic of topos
that he began to grapple with the problem of environment, or of the world.
W e as individuals are located in the world, and we in turn take active part in
shaping the world. Nishida's contemplation of the world and the individual
may be summed up in terms of four "foci," or four aspects: 1) the aspect of
the individual self, whose awareness is open to the "original face" and who is
endowed with creativity as one who moves "from the created to the creator"
( tsukurareta mono kara tsukuru mono e {'P? tL t-:: 'b O) 1.1' C:J{''¡: J.> 'b O)"'-); 2) the
interpersonal and social aspect ofthe conscious self, including the "I-Thou"
relationship and various social relationships; 3) the aspect of the world as that
constituted by numerous individuals; and 4) the aspect of one cohesive his~i- · ,
\ torical world that is in constant motion "from the created to the creating."
Nishida viewed these aspects in terms of "One" and "Many," a terminology
he adapted from scholastic Buddhism. In terms of our religious awareness,
this cohesive historical world is none other than God. Nishida's reflection on
this point may have continued in something like the following way:
An individual self does not exist alone, but only in relation to other
individuals and sometimes in conflict with such individuals! We are
irreducible to any other. We individuals are the topoi of the world.
Moreover, our se! ves are sustained and nourished by that which
gives us life and consciousness. The source of life is the world, the
8
Topos. The Topos, the groundless ground of the real self,' is God.
Did I not experience sorne universallove welling up from the bot-
tom of my heart when I witnessed the death of my little daughter,
Yüko1 Yes. That must have been my glimpse ofthe reality ofinfinite
merey.
Nishida's contemplation next turned to the question of the temporality of
human existence and of the world, that is, to the problem of history:
lB The "ground" is groundless in that it is not sorne kind of substratum that exists beneath our
self-existence. This groundless ground is utterly transcendent and yet utterly immanent, is that
which, although not identical with our existence, nevertheless embraces our existen ce and gives life
to each individual.
28
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
What is God in relation to this historical world in which we are
born, in which we work, and in which we die1 When my wife Kotorni
suffered a stroke in 1919 and became bedridden for the rest of her
life, I was made keenly aware of the wretchedness of our temporal
existence. Yes, we exist in time, and in that sense we are "histori-
cal" ( rekishiteki ltit~á(] ), or time-bound.
In fact, a few years after Kotomi's death Nishida wrote to Yamamoto Ryo-
kichi describing his personal reflections following his wife's sudden illness:
Human beings exist in time. Precisely because there is the past,
such a thing as "I" exists. That the past is present in the present
moment simultaneously constitutes that person's future . When my
wife was suddenly paralyzed beca use of illness, I was overcome by
this thought. It felt to me as if the important part that constituted
\1 my past had disappeared all at once, and it was also as if my future
had disappeared with it. Even if there are joyful occasions, there is
f\
no one to rejoice with. Even if there are sad moments, there is no
one to commiserate with. 19
Nishida's inner reflections on time and history continue:
Do we originally possess consciousness of time? No, we are made \
to become aware of time, and of our historical environment, by
virtue of being in the world. ~d is thus the source of self-
consciou~ss . It...fullow...s, therefore, that when the world becom.es-
self-conscious so does each individual.fuas~as the so urce of
self-consciousness is God, this history-bound world is God's self-
expression. Time and space, which are contradictory elements,
come together in our consciousness and our self-existence; this
contradictory unity of time and space can be seen as God's self-
expression. What about the Zen saying that the mind and Buddha
are the same?
Does this mean we human individuals are identical with God? If
we were, there would be no need to speak about God. The God-
reality is something we can never see or become one with, except
we know it and listen to it. We are never separated from it and yet
are never identical with it. This is what Daito Kokushi ::k~OO~jjj
19
Nishida's letter, 9 February 1927 (NKZ 18 :321 )
29

Y usA
(1282-1338) so excellently expressed in his poem {Jl19Jffií.JIL
ffií ~Ji~/fllliL ~Bffi~t, ffií~<~m~::f~t, JlU11lA4:1fZ:
Separated by an eternity, and yet not separated even for an instant;
Face to face the whole day, yet not faceto face even an instant.
This is the principle according to which human beings exist.
(Poem cited NKZ 11:409)
This is why Nishida holds that the logic of topos, or the "theology of the logic
of topos," is not "pantheistic" (NKZ 11 :399). Further, he claims that his view
of the religious world is "neither theistic nor deistic, neither spiritual nor nat-
ural; rather it is [thoroughly] historical" (NKZ 11:406).
In this last essay Nishida introduced the term gyakutaió ~Mr.l::·, "inverse
correlation," to describe how God and humanity are related. In our moments
of profound religious repentance, holds Nishida, we become aware of and
en ter into the presence of God. God responds and reaches out to us in our
\ moments of despair, in our anguished desire for forgiveness, in our "dark
nights of the soul." We can never plan for God to be there, nor can we go
after God. Only when we drop all conscious effort and reach our wits' end
does the ocean of compassion receive our desperate, exhausted souls.
Nishida did not fully develop a philosophy accounting for the evil that human
beings are capable of (as shockingly demonstrated by, for example, the atroc-
ities that occurred during WWII). But he saw humanity to be essentially sin-
ners, as in the Christian story of the Fall of Adam. 20 In light of this Nishida
understood the Incarnation of Christ as God's kenósis in absolute compassion
(karu~ii) for, and lave (agape ) of, humanity, and noted that followers ofPure
Land Buddhism likewise believe that the Buddha saves even the most wicked
by transforming "itself'' even into a devil if need be (NKZ 11:436).
In the inversely correlative relationship with God, we humans are able to
"witness" God only by means of "expression." This is why in the Christian
tradition Lagos, or Word, has been of paramount importance as God's self-
expression. For Nishida, Lagos is God's voice that calls us. He finds a simi-
lar testimony in Shinran ft~ (1173-1262), who said that the chanting ofthe
holy name ( myogó ~%) of Amida Buddha was actually not his personal act
but the Buddha's act of compassion (NKZ 11:442).
20 Nishida understands the Fall of Adam as the "coming into being of humanity as the self-
denial ofGod" or kenosis. In Buddhist terms, it is the "sudden arising ofthought" (NKZ 11 :432 ).
30
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Conclusion
Nishida's existential sea~ch for the solution to ultimate spiritual questi~ns7
endowed bis thought w1th the power to move and comfort readers seeking \
spiritual consolation. That philosophy can offer consolation is nothing new-
the Stoic tradition, for example, is filled with wisdom ofthis kind. In this con- \
nection we may mentían Boethius (ca. 480-524), who in his prison cell
called upon "Lady Philosophy" to console him (GILSON 1936, p. 369). On
the Consolation of Philosophy, which he wrote while he awaited execution,
became a perennial favorite reading of Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and
numerous other medieval intellectuals, as well as political figures like King
Alfred and Que en Elizabeth l. The popularity of the book is attributed to its
"mingled melancholy, resignation to divine providence, and sense of the
supreme val u e of the good in life ... [which] appealed powerfully to the expe-
rience of those confronting the risks and disasters of medieval life," and
brought comfort to those who sought it (KNOWLES 1967).
In Nishida's case the power to move seems to come not so much from a
sense of the "divine providence" as from the existencial source of his philo-
sophical inquiry, "the center" of himself. Thomas Merton once said that he ~J
wrote for God, and not for personal fame or public acclaim. Merton's aware-
ness seems to illustrate very aptly the source of Nishida's philosophical con- )
templation.
Nishida's later philosophy, because ofits terminological sophistication and
cosmocentric description, may make less transparent to readers the deep source
from which he drew his personal and intellectual strength and inspiration.
But when we look at his work as an integral whole, it is apparent that this source
continued to supply him with the "water of life." His statement that "God is ~
the central idea ofreligion; without God there is no religion" (NKZ 11:372)
should come as no surprise. Nishida's philosophy of religion was, after all,
neither a recasting of a convencional Zen worldview nor a superficial amalgam
of Buddhism and Christianity, but the expression of his spiritual quest, of his
sincerity, and of his serious engagement with the works of philosophers and
great figures of faith, be they Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist.
As such, the question can be asked: Does Nishida's philosophy of religion
offer a constructive direction between Christianity and Buddhism? Or is it to
be considered a watered-down version of the "Zen-centric" worldview, and
so without any practical application? I personally find that Nishida's philosophy
of religion has much to offer. For instance, it takes us beyond the traditional
31
 YUSA

theistic interpretation of mystical experience, and mak.es it possible for

The Bodily Manifestation of Religious Experience
humans to attain during their lifetime the fourth stage of lave that Bernard
de Clairvaux discussed as a reality only reserved for us in the afterlife. and Late Nishida Philosophy
Perhaps another question we may contemplare is why Nishida's thought
continues to attract readers even towards the end of the twentieth century,
AGUSTÍN }ACINTO Z.
more than half a century after his death. Might it be that our need for what
Nishida has to offer is an indication of the kind of world we are living in
today1

Abbreviations
OST RELIGIONS HAVE a tradition of concretely manifested religious
NKZ Nishida Kitaro zenshü "@83~.\HP..fl~{E:~ [The complete works ofNishida
Kitaro], 3rd printing, 1978-80. 19 vals. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
M lived-experience (taiken 1*~). This concrete manifestation expresses
itself through material things, through the body, and through signs and sym-
bols. It would take us far beyond the scope of the present paper to consider
all such expressive activity, even though, as Miki Kiyoshi points out, such
References cited
activity is a very important aspect of Nishida's philosophy (MIKI 1968
10:424-26). I will thus restrict my treatment to the bodily manifestation of
GILSON, Étienne
1936 The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (Gifford Lectures 1931-32). New religious lived-experience. For Nishida, this manifestation is as characteristic
York: Charles Scribner's Sons. of Buddhism (be it Zen, Jodo Shinshü., Kegon, or Tendai) as it is of Chris-
tianity (10:438). 1
HousTON James M., ed.
1983 Bernard ofClairvaux: The Love ofGod and Spiritual Friendship. Port-
land: Multnomah Press. Religious Experience
KNOWLES, David I would like to define "religious experience" as the human lived-experience
1967 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus. In The Encyclopedia of Philoso-
phy. New York and London: Macmillan. ( taiken) of the "spiritual fact" ( reiseiteki jijitsu ~tttr.J-~) that Nishida
describes in his "Bashoteki ronri to shü.kyoteki sekaikan" t~pJTá(]~~~t*~H(]
KOSAKA Masaaki tit Wlll. [The logic of topos and the religious worldview] ( 1945 ), where the
1948 Nishida Kitaro sensei no tsuioku "@83~~!!~7t;~O)~{¡. Tokyo: Kuni-
personal aspect is clearly emphasized. 2
tachi Shoin.
Nishida's writings about religion befare 1944 talk not ofthe lived experi-
NISHITANI Keiji i!!J:§§?t ence of a personal encounter with a personal absolute, but of the equivalent
1985 Nishida Kitaro, sono hito to shiso "®"83~~M,f"O)}\t.\:!.~ll.. Tokyo:
concept of a lived experieoce afNotbjngness: "In religious consciousness we
Chikuma Shobo.
drop body and mind and are united with the consciousness of absolute Noth-
NITTA Yoshihiro, TATEMATSU Hirotaka, and SIMOMISE Eiichi
1979 Phenomenology and philosophy in Japan. In]apanese Phenomenology,
ed. Nitta Yoshihiro and Tatematsu Hirotaka. Analecta Husserliana 8. 1
All references to Nishida KitariJ zenshü (NISHIDA 1978-80) are given with the volume num-
Dordrecht, Bastan, London: D. Reidel Publishing Company. ber followed by the page number.
2
SCHINZINGER, Robert, trans. I have analyzed the main elements of this "spiritual fact" in ]ACJNTO 1989, pp. 115-254,
1958 Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness. Tokyo: Maruzen. 257-308.

32 33
 JACINTO
~)o My reflections on the bodily manifestation of religious
lived-experience (Erlebnis) will take as a basis Nishida's writings from 1925
ono First I will review what Nishida says concerning the body; second, I
will consider the implications of the penetration of the consciousness of
absolute Nothingness represented by the expression "to bodifY absolute
Nothingness" (10:70); third, I will present the main aspects ofthe religious
lived-experience in late Nishida philosophy; and finally, I will outline the
bodily manifestation of lived religious experience through expressive media-
tion as creative actiono
The Human Body
The various aspects of the human body are expressed in Japanese by the dif-
fering words used to express them: shintai ~1$: (human body), karada 1$:
(the body), nikutai p:]1;f: (flesh [5:296, 308] and that which is bodily or cor-
poreal [leibhaftig; 5:461) o
Already in 1920-23, in Geijutsu to dotoku !HJITC:~f~ [Art and morality],
Nishida offers the view that "our body is a trace in the material world [in
which] the whole oflife flows" (3:272)0 When we reflect upon our body, we
transform what is objective into something that is an expression ( 3:352 )o He
also considers the body to be an expression, and an organ of expression, of a
person's spiritual content (3:353)0 The unification ofthe manifold world of
historical reality is to be found in our body (3:354)0
Later in this same middle period Nishida regards the body as the expres-
sion-at the basis of our consciousness-of our active self (5:156)0 In this
sense, our body "is made up ofinternal [metaphysical] matter; it is not some-
thing composed ofmere [physical] matter" (5:285, 289)0 However, Nishida
adds that "what we view as our body has diverse meanings" (5:272)0 Let us
examine sorne of these meaningso
a) The body as viewed from without, as, for example, by the natural sciences
(physics, physiology, and so on)o Our body is seen "teleologically as a
part of the natural world" ( 5:280), and as such is devoid of spiritual
content (5:272)0 Our body seen from the outside is "that part that
[our] will has cut out from the natural world" (5:279) through our
bodily movement (5:284)0 It is both our body and the bodies of other
persons that are seen as objects (5:308)0
34
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
b) The body as viewed from within ( 5:2 79 ): the noematic aspecto When it is
seen from within, the body has a twofold character: noematic and noetico
The noematic aspect (5:277) is evident in the body's capacity to serve
as a tool of the conscious self when the body is seen as our irrational
element, unreachable and lying at the depths of our personality
(6:375 )o In this sense, our body "is nothing more than the irrational
that can be seen in the self and that, being Nothingness, determines
itselP' ( 6:327)0 It is not only the body that is irrational, however: there
is something irracional at the very bottom of our physical being
(6:375 ), and, in addition, an historical irrationality ( the irrationality of
the Thou) at the very bottom ofour individual self(6:416)o From this
point of view the body is seen as a passive tool, as "a mere organ of
behavior" (6:78); it is, as in Bergson, "a tool of life" (6:360)0 In this
sense, nature, when it becomes the body of the self, becomes the con-
tent ofthe self(5:271)o At the same time, the selfis bodily determined:
it is determined through the bodyo The body thus underlies the self-
determination ofthe self(5:271, 2721); moreover, as the "shadow of
the idea"-that is to say, as "the noematic image of the intelligible
selP'-it determines our consciousness (5:275, 276, 280)0 But the body
is not only the agent of self-determination but also the self-manifesta-
tion of the active self (5:276)-that is, it is the interna! determination
of the self ( 5:280) o
e) The body as viewed from within: the noetic aspecto Here the body is se en
to be not merely a passive instrument of the self; from being a factual
body it becomes an active body (6:84)0 This means that "our body is a
tool of self-realization of the self and, at the same time, it has an expres-
sive meaning" (6:14, 78)-"without a body there is no personality"
(6:375 ), and in our willful action we "bodifY the world of objective
facts" (5:277)0 It is in this active manifestation of our self-determination
(5:273) that the noetic aspect ofthe body is evident (5:277)0
The noematic aspect is subsumed under the noetic aspecto Nishida
says that "our body has a metaphysical meaning" (5:156)-it is "the
objectified image of our selP' (5:280), and the true self can only be seen
through its behavior (5:276)0 In every decision we stake our body and
touch the true instant (6:290): a true decision "must be something that
penetrares the body of the selP' (5:278)0 In this sense we can, like
35

}ACINTO
Schopenhauer, consider our body as "will" (6:269), and our bodily
behavior as "an objectification of the will" (5:272). However, even
though "action forros the maximum limit ofthe body" (5:293), my self
and the self of others cannot, as bodily selves, directly touch each other
(5:301, 308). That is, there is a gulfbetween my self and the self of others.
d) The intelligible body. In order to overcome this separation between self
and self, "that which includes us as environment ... must be the world of
expression" (6:371 ). Nishida says that "in expression the selfbecomes the
other, [ our] self loses itself and every other [ self] becomes [ our] self.
There we lose our own body and, at the same time, there everything
signifies the body ofthe self' (6:326). When both our own activity and
the activity of others are willful action and expression, it is possible for
my selfand other selves to come into mutual personal contact (5:302).
That is to say, another manner of conceiving the body is as bodily activ-
ity seen both as action andas expression (5:274, 283). From this point
of view, the bodily separation between our self and the selves of others
can be overcome: when our body is an intelligible body, "the whole
objective world becomes a world of expression" (5:301). Our body
inhabits a world that has the aspects of expression and of action: such a
world is for us what is most immediate and concrete (6:263).
e) The body as that in which the selfgoes into the depths of its physical deter-
mination and achieves liberation from physical determination (6:79).
"When we truly penetrare the consciousness of absolute Nothingness,
there is no ego, there is no God. And because it is absolute Nothing-
ness, mountains are mountains and water is water" (5:182). When this
happens, the self comes to the true self-perception of absolute Noth-
ingness (6:79, 80), where we arrive "through what roen ofreligion cal!
'the dropping offofbody and mind"' (6:79). In this case, "what is con-
sidered as [ our] body ... can only be thought of as a determination of
Nothingness with the character of topos'' (6:196 ). According to Nishi-
da, the body that is referred toas the "temple" ofthe Holy Spirit (1 Cor
6:19) is our historical body, and "that which is considered flesh is noth-
ing but an image ofthis body" (6:290-91).
This five-fold manner of conceiving the body, characteristic of Nishida
between 1928 and 1932, develops into something much more articulated in
the 1933-45 period, when Nishida says that we must take our point of depar-
36
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
ture from the world of historical reality mediating itself through things. Such
a world must not be thought of either in terms of sense perception or of object
logic-it can only be apprehended from the viewpoint of the historical, pro-
ductive body (8:405 ). In order to conceive of that which is most immediate,
that which is "befare the separation of subject and object" (8:405)-the
most concrete point ofview-we must take our point of departure from bod-
ily action, from the fact that we possess bodies (8:445 ). Even the dialectical
character of historical reality can be apprehended by "starting from an analy-
sis of the body, which is for us the most immediate fact" (8:271 ).
In his logic of topos the later Nishida saw the body as threefold in nature,
constituting a biological body, an historical body, anda productive body (see
JACINTO 1989, part 1, pp. 19-58). When Nishida talks ofthe body he refers
.primarily to the unity of body and mind, that is to say, to the whole human
~Our body origlñares from thts w""Orld. and is the "self-formative organ
of this world" ( 11:311). Our body is the prototype of a particular forro of the
universe (11:352).
Our action origina tes in our reflection of the world through expressive and
productive activity (9:179). In this sense, "our body is an organ ofthe self-
expression of historicallife" (8:336). Poiesis is not separate from technique,
but involves the production of things using technique (9:279). As the self-
expression of the world, poiesis is also the self-formation or clle auto oiesis, of
the wor:ld ~ act!Vlty o t e tstorical body is the self-expression
and self-formation of the world of reality, which is itself expressive (see
10:481). This is why the bodily self is a self-expressive point of the self-
expressing world: the bodily self originates within this world, acts within it,
and within it goes to its death (10:352). The world possesses a dynamic focus
of self-expression and self-formation, and this focus is the human individual.
This is why action is the result not only of our will but also of things in the
historical world (se e 8:402).
The historical body can be seen to have two aspects, one active (that which
makes) and the other given (that which is made ). In action there are two
directions corresponding to these two aspects: the direction in which the his-
torical body is active and is made (this is included in what Nishida calls "from
the active to that which is made" [9:50]), and the direction in which the his-
torical body is created and creates (which is included in what Nishida calls
"from that which is made to that which makes" [8:477]). In the active aspect
of the historical body, the bodily historical self is the self-expressive point of
37
 JACINTO
the world (11:306), andas such it perceives itself (11:135). The body is the
basis, the platform of action. Action "originares from the fact that we are
bodily historical" (9:186 ). In its action the historical body is a point of self-
determination of the world ( 11:202).
When we make things with our body there must be the mediation of
unceasing historical development (10:106). Bodily action is the action ofthe
poietic self ( 11:134 ), which perceives itself ( 11:25) as an active, creative self.
This means that the bodily historical self perceives itself from the standpoint
ofthat which is made (9:268). The self-perception ofthe bodily historical self
is given from that which is made; the self is bodily constituted within the
historical world (10:94). The historical body, which in formation is the self-
formation and self-expression of the world, is the basis of our historical oper-
ation (10:255, 133). This is why Nishida insists that "in making things we
must begin our thinking from the standpoint of the body. Without a body
there is no making" (10:355). When we act we act bodily (9:240), we
depend on the body (10:352), and the body is indispensable for us (10:134,
352, 355, 433).
From the viewpoint of poiesis, the world is corporeal (9:241). Its mediator
is corporeal and expressive (8:162). Nishida does not think ofthe world start-
ing from this bodily mediator; rather, he thinks of the body starting from the
world. He thinks of the body starting from poiesis (9:260), from world-forming
and world-transforming action that is, at the same time, the self-formation
( autopoiesis) of the world. E ven interpersonal relations are based on the his-
torical body (11:235, 235-36). This means that action among persons must
be action done from the unity of body and mind, action originating from
active intuition.
All relations among persons are given in social historical reality, which
has two poles: a transcendent pole ("the direction in which each one of our
selves, as points of self-projection of the absolute, trans-subjectively forms
one sole historical world" [10:248]) and an immanent pole ("the poietic
direction, which has a bodily historical character" [10:247]). Social histori(!al
reality, as the self-identity of these two contradictory poles, is given with
the character of active intuition (10:248). Both in the world of social rela-
tions and in the historical world in a broad sense, the action of the bodily
historical poietic self must have the character of unity of body and mind, that
is to say, it must have the character ofgyo 1T (see 10:159). Thisgyo signifies
the making of things with the character of "body equals mind"; it means to
38
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELJGIOUS EXPElUENCE
act bodily historically taking our body as the self-identity of absolute contra-
dictories ( 1 O:4-5).
In the next section I would like to summarize how this gyo character of the
action of the bodily historical poietic self comes about. This will simultane-
ously provide an opportunity to see Nishida's philosophical formulation of
the lived religious experience as related to the consciousness ofNothingness,
mentioned above.
To Bodify Absolute Nothingness
The nature of Nishida philosophy as a philosophy of praxis can be summa-
rized as follows.
Our ordinary praxis is that activity in which we make the world our body,
in which we "bodifY the world" (10:70). When we bodifY the world, we con-
struct historical reality and are, in turn, constructed by it. But the deeper
horizon ofthis praxis is "to boclifY absolute Nothingness" (10:70). In another J
possible translation, it is "to bodily manifest absolute Nothingness."
What is the meaning of "to bodifY absolute Nothingness"? Nishida says
that "the activity or praxis of our self as an individual that determines itself"
is to be found "wherever it constructs a historical world" (10:70), wherever
it is responsible for creating an aspect ofthe world (10:72). This is to make
the world our body; it is "to bodifY the world" (10:70). To bodifY the world
means "to negare the bodily historical in the depths of the bodily historical
direction" (10:70), which leads us to the deeper horizon of "bodifYing
absolute Nothingness."
In his middle period Nishida carne to regard the concept of absolute
Nothingness, rather than that of God, as most appropriate for his philosoph-
ical discourse. So we find Nishida using the expressions "to penetrare into the
consciousness of absolute Nothingness" (5:182) to signifY lived religious
experience. Nishida's "bodifYing absolute Nothingness" may be summarized
in the following four points.
1) "To bodifY absolute Nothingness" is to experience in one's own his-
torical body the total ungroundedness and a-substantiality of historical
reality. It is to experience the Ungrund (1:190). We can have the bod-
ily historicallived-experience of such a historical reality because we are
"constructive elements of the historical reality" ( 8:562 ); we are crea ti ve
elements ofa creative world (8:317, 401,405,442,446,452, 466) and
39
 JACINTO
live our everyday lives in such a reality. The lived-experience of reality
is given in the deep and radical perception of the "basis of everyday life"
(11:448), upon which depends the individuality of the self (11:450).
This perception requires that we experience, in our own flesh, in our
historical body, the roots and origins of the existence of the creative
self. It is the lived-experience of the mutual interdependence and recip-
roca! existencial implication among the absolute, the self, and the world.
2) "To bodify absolute Nothingness" is an action that is physically realized
in immediacy, an action that is given before the split of historical reality
into subject and object. But this should not be viewed from the stand-
point ofthe intellectual self(8:368) or its intellectual activity (11:366) ,
but rather from the apprehension of the foundation of action (8:558).
That is to say, the "before the separation of subject and object" must
be thought of together with the origin of action (8:368) whenever we
dialectically make things (8:405) in the historical world together with
other human persons ( 11:434 ). In this sense, the historical world is
"poietic-ally mediated"; it is "technically mediated" (9:241). The his-
torical world is a world "of the mutual determination of subject-object"
( l l :434) where their mutual opposition is historically determined
(8:542). "To bodify absolute Nothingness" is an action that historically
establishes (8:557) the opposition and mutual relation between subject
and object in the social historical world ( 11 :434) .
3) "To bodify absolute Nothingness" is to transform creative reality while
creatively transforming ourselves and our society: "We are born socio-
historically, we technically make things and through our making we
make ourselves" (12:297) . This is possible because "we become coa-
structive elements ofhistorical reality" (8:562), because we are "poietic
elements of a poietic world" (9:9), and because our bodily historical
selves are "creative elements of a creative world" (9:9, 53, 83, 142,
145; lO, 326, 531, 563; 11:403, 437; 12:296; see also 10:378, 404,
451, 465, 469). As a point in which the absolute projects itself, the self
forms the historical world through active intuition (10:217-18).
4) "To bodify absolute Nothingness" is an action resulting from religious
experience, and such an action has the character of gyb--it is religious
praxis. Inasmuch as religious praxis involves the bodification of
absolute Nothingness, it is a "nonactive activity" (10:57, 79, 114).
40
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
That is to say, it is the bodily historical manifestation of reality as lived-
experience: it is the realization of absolute Nothingness. It is the activ-
ity of the active self that has bodily historically experienced the foun-
tainhead of its own existen ce. In this sense it is creative activity-it is
the heavenly action of an a-substancial self that has dropped off body
and mind. It is the creative activity that emanates from, in Dogen's
expression, "a soft and flexible heart" (10:241). It isgyó (Letter 1757,
2/IV/43, to Suetsuna Joichi; 19:234).
Now I would like to explore from a different perspective the manner in
which this penetration into the consciousness of absolute Nothingness comes
to be an encounter with the personal Other.
Religious Experience in Late Nishida Philosophy
In late Nishida philosophy religious lived-experience is not merely the pene-
tration of the consciousness of absolute Nothingness. On the basis of his j 1
articulation of the logic of topos l.!oposu-teki ronri }:;ji záMiin; Letter 1648, ~ · ·v
20/III/42, to Miyake Goichi; 19:190), Nishida in his late period was able to
treat both Buddhism and Christianity in a philosophical manner. For our pur-
poses Jet us consider the following two points: God as the central concept of
religion, and our encounter with the personal Other.
Goo AS THE CENTRAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION
Religion in Nishida's late period involves "the thorough penetration into the
unborn heart of the Buddha" ( l 0:123 ). The purpose of religion is to appre-
hend eterna! life in our daily historical life ( l l :454 ) through an ungrounded
apprehension of eternallife ( ll :454). Different religions are formed according
to the manner in which the relationship between the self and the absolute is
interpreted (10:163). Al! forms of relation between the self and the absolute
are historically determined and are limited; this is why religions interpenetrate
(11:142). For Nishida there are world religions and folk religions: the former
have transcended the culture in which they originated, while the latter are still
tied to it ( ll :45 5). In his last complete essay Nishida considers two world
religions: Buddhism and Christianity.
For Nishida God is the central concept of religion: "If ther~ is no God,
there is no religion. God is the fundamental concept of religion" ( l l :372; se e
also 1:188). This is so within the religious dimension, where the personal
41
 ]A CINTO
characteristics of both God and man are maintained. This is consonant with
the logic of topos, in which the absolute, the individual, and the world are the
three main concepts, totally interrelated but mutually nonreductible.
For Nishida, "philosophy must take its point of departure in the funda-
mental self-perception" ( 10:123) of the unborn heart of the Buddha. In his
late period Nishida incorporares not only his mother's Shin Buddhism but
also one of his early concepts of God: "God is the great personality that is the
foundation ofthe universe" (I: 182).
The early Nishida also wrote about the characteristics of God's personality
in the essay "Kami no jirtkakusei" ::f$0)}\.f~ti [The personality of God]
( 15:354 ff. ), in which, just as in Zen no kenkyu, we can see the influence of
John Richard Illingworth's Personality: Human and Divine (1894). Nishida
relies mainly on the characteristics of personality that Illingworth finds in
Kant: self-consciousness, free will, and !ove (1:183; ILLINGWORTH 1894, pp.
22, 23). Personality for Illingworth and for the early Nishida is a unifYing
power (1:151-52; ILLINGWORTH 1894, p. 29). 3
But the late Nishida's view of God is not a mere regression to an earlier
stage. Mter his middle period, in which he talks primarily about absolute
nothingness even in reference to religion, Nishida viewed the absolute as per-
sonal in nature, both with regard to Christianity (which he saw as personalist
[cf. ll:410]) and Shin Buddhism.• In his exposition he goes back again to
Kant for the characteristics of personality (ll:388). He mentions that per-
sonality is unique in history and does not repeat itself ( ll :395, 420), that it
is creative (ll:402, 400), and that it has will (ll:405) and freedom (ll:449)
(even though Kantian free will contrasts with the absolute freedom spoken of
by Rinzai [ll:449, 451]).
Befare continuing we should note that, for the late Nishida, it is only
when we encounter absolute nothingness-or any other conceptual formula-
tion of the absolute-as a personal Other and enter into a personal relation-
ship with it that it becomes God for us . But even to recognize the absolute
or absolute nothingness as our God is already a metanoia. It is to recognize
our God in our neighbor: "We must stand on the faith that, as Kierkegaard
says, 'the individual who is at my side is God"' (1 0 :70 ). To enter the faith
3The parallel texts in Illingworth's book and Zen no kenkyii are listed in appendix 1 of JACIN-
TO 1984, pp. 147-57).
4 For a discussion ofthis point, see MARALDO 1988.
42
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF R.ELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
means to recognize the absolute Other in any of its manifold appearances; it
is airead y to be reborn in the Pure Land Uodo ojo Ml- ± 111:.). To recognize
divinity in any ofits "multifarious forms" (ll:436; cf. Hebr. 1:1) is already
the work of the personal Other: it is "the cal! of God or of the Buddha"
(11:409). Such manifestations of God are for usa spiritual fact (ll:372). It
is this personal Other-philosophically characterized by Nishida as the
absolute oras absolute Nothingness-who out of!ove and merey calls us into
existence, who keeps us in existence, and who invites us to enter into a per-
sonal relationship. And our response to this invitation is already the work of
the personal Other ( ll :432). Thus the personal Other can be called "father
God or mother Buddha" (ll:407).
There are many characteristics of the absolute as personal Other: it is cre-
ative ( ll :396 ); it displays a "self-identity of absolute contradictories"
(ll:398); it is both immanent and transcendental and, in this sense, dialecti-
cal (11:398-99); it is merciful as opposed to imperious (ll:439); it is the
infinite center ofan infinite sphere (ll:406); it is all-knowing and all-power-
ful (11:398); and so on. There are, however, three characteristics in particu-
lar that should be mentioned in relation to the personal absolute.
a) The true God is kenotic (ll:399)-it is capable of self-negation (ll:397,
400, 404, 420, 458) and of descending even to the greatest evil
(ll:404). Nishida says, "It is extremely paradoxical, but the true absolute
God must be, in one aspect, diabolical" (ll:404). Negating itself, the
absolute is immanent everywhere in the world (ll:398). The utmost
self-negation of God, in Christianity, is the Incarnation ( ll :436 ), the
coming of the only begotten son into the historical world (cf. Philip,
2:7, kenosis) . From an ontological point ofview, Nishida sees kenosis as
corresponding to what he calls "the determination of Nothingness"
(Letter 882, ll/II/35, to Kumano Yoshitaka; 18:513), andas predi-
cated-as Yagi Seiichi points out-on the Son.
b) The true God is self-expressive, and this is revelation: "The self-expression
of this absolute can be considered, in a religious sense, to be the reve-
lation of God" (ll:403). The personal absolute, God, manifests him-
self in his own crea tive and saving word ( ll :443). The human self is
constituted from this creative self-negation (ll:4ll, 432, 436) and
self-expression of God. The self-expression of the absolute takes place
as the Word of God in the historical world, where it has the character
43
 JACINTO
ofa force that forms history (11:440, 441). The manifestation ofthis
creative Word in the historical world is revelation ( 11:441 ). God's self-
expression provides objective truth in the historical world, and for us to
know this truth has the character of kairos (11:448).
e) The true God is lave. "In every religion, in sorne sense, God is !ove,"
Nishida writes ( 11:435 ). "Lave must be a total relationship with the
character of the self-identity of contradictories, that is to say, between
two opposing personalities" ( 11:435 ), between an I and a Thou
(11:437). In Nishida we find !ove and merey as characteristics of the
personal Other (11:399. Cf. 1:194). It is absolute !ove: "Absolute
agape must extend even to absolute evil" (11:405). In order to save
his/her creatures, father God sends his only begotten son, or mother
Buddha assumes various forms and produces out of herself even the
demons ( ll :436).
THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE PERSONAL ÜTHER
Our encounter with the personal absolute origina tes in the self-expressiveness
of the latter, in relations of self-negation, self-manifestation, and !ove. When
such an encounter takes place we can speak of a mutual determination that
has an expressive character ( 11:381 ): it is a relation between the self-expressive,
crea ti ve personal absolute and the self that is created and that in turn crea tes
( 11 :439). The self that enters into religious relations is "egua! in the wise and
in the ignorant, in the good and in the evil" ( 11 :41 O). This characteristic of
the self in religious relations is clarified through Shinran's dictum: "Even
good persons are reborn [in the Pure Land], how much more the evil ones"
(Tannisho, 3; 11:410; 1:192).
As mentioned above, the spiritual event, or spiritual "fact," of religion
occurs when the self recognizes and faces the personal absolute, that is, when
it faces God ( 11:396 ). This event involves the self's recognition of its own
eterna! death and, through this experience, its transcendence of eterna! death
( 11:395-96 ). To en ter faith implies a radical change in our existence
(11:419), one in which we "entirely exhaust the self'' (11:428) and die to
self (11:396), and can be raised from the dead only by God (8:588). In the
encounter with God the self does not unite with or become the personal
absolute, and "this is why we must think about reciproca! correspondence"
(11:415), which keeps the different as different and the contradictory as con-
tradictory within a mutual relationship.
44
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
The encounter of the bodily historical self with God is both a total sur-
nder and a total affirmation: on the one hand it is the existence of the self
~e reciproca! correspondence with God and the existence of the self as the
~lf-negation of God, and on the other hand it is the existence of the self as
a separate personal.ity with its own will that opposes .absol~te wi~l. In the first
aspect, entering fa1th means a return to the true existential bas1s of the self.
In the second aspect, the rebellion against absolute will necessitates the nega-
tion of the self, the death of the self.
True religion is beyond both total self-surrender and total self-affirmation,
which is why the viewpoint of religion transcends both other-power and self-
power (1:408; 11:411). The encounter in which we recognize God is itself
the work of God (or as Luther says, "Faith is the work of God within us, it
renews us and causes us to be born from God, it kills the old Adam and turns
us into a total!y [ new] person, and causes the Holy Spirit to accompany us"
[11:140-41; cf. 11:424]) and at the same time it is human action (in Karl
Barth's words, "It is for the human person, through his/her human decision,
to follow God's decision" [11:427]). In this context, to be "embraced and
never released" ( Tannisho, Preface) is to be born in the Pure Land through
the expression of the Buddha's great merey and compassion. The invocation
of the Marvelous N ame ( nenbutsu -%1L.) is the religious practice that has be en
given to us through not only the compassion of the Buddha and also the
human decision that emerges from a grateful heart (11:442-444). Such invo-
cation must be done in the unity of body-mind.
The father God and the mother Buddha appear in the historical world in
such a manner that the world is pregnant with the divine. Historical reality,
just as it is, is already the manifestation of the divine, as is the natural action
of the human person. Historical reality comes to have a Mittel: the creative
Word of God, or the Marvelous Name of the Buddha. Thus the historical
world becomes not merely a place where the individual lives and dies, not
merely a biological environment, but rather the dwelling place of the divine
Lagos, the divine Word. This is the meaning of jinnen honi § ~itllliJ, "the
natural [what is, such as it is] is already the Dharma" (11:444).
Because of the immanence of the divine-God or Buddha-in everyday
reality, the human person in his ordinary life is already immersed in religious
relations (11:454). No one lacks this (11:418). In fact, in the encounter with
God-that is, in religious lived-experience-there is nothing to be observed
as an externa! object ( 11 :424). Nishida finds that al! we need is, in the words
45
 JACINTO
ofRinzai, "an unattached everyday life" (11:424) and, in the words of Dogen,
"a soft and flexible heart" ( 1O:241). We need "to drop off body and mind,
and to drop offthe body and mind ofthe Buddha" (11:141; 6:79). Then we
become "the true man ofno rank" (8:266) and attain "everyday mind."
For Nishida, "everyday mind" signifies that there is no special attainment
in everyday life (11:424), and yet it cannot be lived as religious experience
except as the actualization ofthe fundamental Vow ofthe Buddha (11:442).
Historical reality is the place where in our everyday life we live the encounter
with our God through the religious mediator: the Word of God or the Mar-
velous N ame of the Buddha.
But there is another aspect of historical reality. The historical world is the
place where we err concerning our existen tia! foundation ( 11 :407) and where
we stray from our existential basis (11:419). This is obnubilation (mayoi
~v'), it is religious blindness, it is rebellion against our creator (11:410). In
this sense it can be said that, because the individual originates "in the
absolute self-negation of God, it is destined to be eternally thrown into the
fire of hell" ( 11:411). The individual is basically a sinner, he is born in orig-
inal sin (11:410, 432). Instead ofpenetrating into its own nothingness and
into the foundation of sin ( 11:411 ), the individual sees its own objectified self
as its true self. In this sense the human heart is the arena [ Tummelplatz] of
the battle between God and the devil ( 11:405 ). The individual cannot free
itselffrom sin ( 11:432 ). It is only through our acceptance of a mediator-the
revelation ofGod or the Buddha-that (as Shinran says) we can be freed from
the weight ofsin that deeply affiicts us (11:411).
This mediator, as the self-expression of the personal Other, as revelation,
is expressive. In the last two years of his life ( 1944-45) Nishida called this
expressive mediator the Word ofGod or the Marvelous Name ofthe Buddha.
With this mediator a new dimension opens up in the meaning of expressive
mediation ( hyogenteki baikai ~UJl.ÉISÍllfr) within the microcosm of religion,
where it comes to bear a world-historical and cosmic significance. In what
follows let us explore this interesting possibility in late Nishida philosophy.
The Bodily Aspect of Religious Expressive Mediation
When we say that a lived experience, a tradition, or a culture is expressed in
styles that differ according to the ethnos and environment, we mean that we
see expression as the Mittel.
46
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
According to Zen Buddhist tradition, letting the body-mind drop off (shin-
'in datsuraku ~-L,RR.?t) is a fundamental aspect ofreligious lived-experience.
{n the encounter with the personal absolute we come to experience a radical
change in ourselves as crea tive elements of the historical world, through spir-
itual training such as meditation with koans ( 11 :446) or the continua! recita-
tion ofthe Marvelous Name (11, 442). We cometo know what religion truly
is through religious discipline or training (gyo) in which we experience total
kenosis, as when we "drop off our body and lose our life" (9:332). Our prac-
tice in the historical world is the sustained religious practice (gyoji 1'T *) of
Buddhas and Patriarchs (Dogen, Shobogenzo, "Gyoji" 1'T* ), it is "to hear with
the same ears and to see with the same eyes" as the Buddhas and Patriarchs
(Mumonkan :Wi r~ Bm, case 1 ). It is for the self to forget itself and to be "attested
to by the ten thousand dharmas" ( Shobogenzo, "Genjo koan" .fJl.JlX:i~~;
11:424; see also 11:438).
Nishida interprets in two complementary ways the manner in which this
aspect of religious lived-experience is bodily manifested:
1) The historical body-mind (bodily historical self) loses its self-based
aspect of center and creator of the world, its place as point of origin of
the coordinares ofthe world (11:38). In the first place, the bodily his-
torical self comes to the experience that it is not its own existencial
foundation (11:445; Cf. 11:407, 409, 419). Secondly, when the bodi-
ly historical self loses its self-based existence it becomes a point of self-
projection of the absolute (10:156, 158, 162, 164, 165, etc.) and of
the transcendent (10:150, 154, 155, 157, etc.). It also becomes a
dynamic focus ofthe self-formation ofhistorical reality (8:433; 11:242,
282, 375, 378, 402, 403) . And thirdly, this dynamic focus or creative
self-as the point ofself-projection ofthe absolute (10:168, 172, 174,
176, etc.), of God (10:432), and of the world (11:74)-creates the
world but is, at the same time, created by this creation.
This triple structure is manifested in a change of the historical body-
mind. The heart-mind loses its solidified viewpoint-it becomes un-
attached and can become "soft and flexible" ( 10:241 ). This is also
expressed as "elevating the heart without letting it dwell anywhere"
[Vagrakkedikii, lOe] (11:415, 423,430, 431). And the body becomes
the body of absolute nothingness, which is also expressed as "total
activity" ( 11 :448) or "absolute freedom." In this absolute freedom our
self is the self-expression of the absolute (11:449). In short, there is a
47
 JACINTO
complete unity of body-mind where the viewpoint of the absolute
moment-the basis ofeveryday life (10:251)-obtains (10:251).
2) In the bodily manifestation of religious lived-experience "we do not
hear the word of God abstractly from outside the world but rather from
the depths of active intuition ... , from the platform of experience. As
creative elements of a creative world we hear the word of God produc-
tively" (9:142). In the historical world our active selfis productive and
creative (7:276). We cometo true religious praxis only as synaxis, as the
communal action, the ecclessia (Kirche), ofthose who have entered the
faith. The practice ofthe Buddhas and Patriarchs is their practice and our
practice is our practice, but at the same time our practice is the sustained
practice of the Buddhas and Patriarchs. This, in a broad sense, is the
meaning of the Christian concept of the communion of saints. It is a
transhistorical tradition that is appropriated through great labor by each
one of us in our body-mind manifestation of religious lived-experience.
The body-mind manifestation of religious lived-experience is the creative
morphology ( 12:376) of the new man who is responsible for the formation
of the global world ( 12:432 ). It is creative intuition: our body acts already as
the "self-identity of contradictories" (8:472). It is creative self-perception
that is not necessarily conscious of being such (8:332 ).
The religious lived-experience in its bodily manifestation becomes creative
action, which is also conceptualized by Nishida-using an Aristotelian term-
as hexis (10:141), the productive habit of the bodily historical social self in
which the selfforms itself. As hexis it is a productive power, a virtus ( 10:141 ).
Understood as hexis, creative action is action intended for others and related
to the concept of dromenon (10:183). Dromenon is communal action
charged with emotion ( 10:201, 224 ), and is deeply rooted in religious rela-
tions; it is, in sorne sense, "the primitive process of social construction"
(10:203). In the depths ofsocial development "there must be something that
has the character of dromenon, there must be the sacré" (10:207) as the basis
of social organization ( 10:224).
The history of the world has the character of dromenon (10:210), origi-
nating in myth, ritual, and tradition. The dromenon is the paradigm of the
activity of the historical species (10:216), the paradigm of social action
(10:235). Such action originares from tradition and acts upon tradition,
forming the matrix ofworld history (10:210). In this sense "that which is
48
THE BODILY MANIFESTATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
rnanifest in the historical world is not phaenomena, but rather dromena"
(10:205). That is to say, everything in the historical world should be studied
as the activity of expressive mediation, as that which is socially done within a
rradition.
In this manner we can see that with the appearance ofthe religious medi-
ator new horizons are opened for expressive mediation.
Summary
Although here I have dealt primarily with the human body, the body forms
only one of the three aspects of what I have called the theory of expressive
mediation in Nishida philosophy, the other two bein~bol and his-
~pressivity. In this paper I have endeavored to presentan exercise in
the use oftnetogic of topos with the purpose of showing how the problem of
the bodily manifestation of religious experience is philosophically treated in
Nishida. In arder to do this I have drawn from Nishida's concept of expres-
sive mediation to clarif)r Nishida's concept of the body, his view of religious
experience, and his ideas on how religious practice as the bodily manifesta-
tion of religious experience results in creative action. Perhaps the most
important point to come to light in the discussion is that of the expressive
mediator: the pervading activity ofthe Word ofGod or the Marvelous Name
of the Buddha.
References cited
ILLINGWORTH, John Richard
1894 Personality: Human and Divine. London and New York: Macmillan
and Co.
JACINTO Z., Augustín
1984 Zen y personalidad. Zamora, Michoacán: El Colegio de Michoacán.
1989 Filosofia de la transformación del mundo. Introducción a la jilosofia
tardía de Nishida Kitaro. Zamora, Michoacán: El Colegio de
Michoacán / The Japan Foundation.
MARALno, John
1988 Nishida and the individualization of religion. Zen Buddhism Today 6:
70-87.
49
 JACINTO

Mna Kiyoshi
1968 Miki Kiyoshi zenshu .=: *i¡lf~~ [The complete works of Miki Kiyoshi], Questions Posed by Nishida's Philosophy
19 vals. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
NISHIDA Kitaró Eljffi~~e~
1978-80 Nishida Kitaro zenshu ímffi~~e~~~ [The complete works of FUJITA MA.SAKATSU
Nishida Kitaro], 3rd printing. 19 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

N THE PRESENT ARTICLE I would like to clarifY, as far as possible, the philo-
I sophical problems addressed by Nishida Kitaro, taking into consideration
the historical context within which these problems arase. In doing so I hope
to identifY what Nishida saw as the limitations ofWestern thought, and show
how he attemptedto overcome these limitations. With this as a basis, I would
then like to consider what questions Nishida's criticisms pose to us in our
present historical context, and what direction his thought points us in. Our
dual aim, therefore, is to situate Nishida in his context and let him speak to us
in ours. Let us begin by looking at Nishida's critique of subject-object dualism.

Pure Experience and the Critique of Subject-Object Dualism

In Zen no kenkyu ~ O)~JfJ'E [A study of the good] 1 Nishida explains "pure

experience" in severa! ways. For example, in the opening paragraph he writes,
"Pure experience is identical with direct experience. When one directly expe-
riences one's state of consciousness, there is not yet a subject oran object, and
knowing and its object are completely unified"(IG, pp. 3--4). Severa! pages later
he writes, "Without adding the least bit of thought, we can shift our attention
within the state where the subject and object have not yet separated" (IG, p.
6, modified). In the book's final chapter, "Knowledge and Lave," he writes:
When we are absorbed in something the self laves, for example, we
are almost totally unconscious. We forget the self, and at this point
an incomprehensible power beyond the self functions alone in all of
its majesty; there is neither subject nor object, but only the true
union of subject and object. (IG, pp. 174-75)

1
Translated into English as An Inquiry into the Good (hereafter IG), by Masao Abe and
Christopher Ives (NISHIDA 1990). Quotations in English from Zen no kenkyu follow Abe and Ives's
translation, slightly modified in places.

50
51
 FU JITA
In such phrases as "there is not yet subject or object," "before the separation
of subject and object," and "the unity of subject and object," Nishida is
undoubtedly criticizing any dualism that sets the subject and object over
against each other. Nishida says the following concerning the subject-object
opposition:
With respect to seeing reality directly, there is no distinction
between subject and object in any state of direct experience-one
encounters reality face to face ... . The distinction between subject
and object is a relative form that arises when one has lost the unity
of experience, and to regard subject and object as mutually inde-
pendent realities is an arbitrary view. (IG, pp. 31-32)
Nishida refers to as an "arbitrary view" the outlook that posits both the "mind"
(the "interna! mind" or "consciousness") which projects the outside world
and the "outside world" ehich is projected by this consciousness, and that
then goes on to reify both sides of this duality. Nishida's view is that the
opposition of subject and object arises only aftetwards through the work of
reflection; there is neither the distinction nor the opposition of subject and
object in the original field of experience. This criticism of the subject-object
opposition forms a central theme of Zen no kenkyü, which centers on Nishida's
teaching of an experience "before the separation of subject and object."
It could be said that what supports the subject-object opposition is noth-
ing other than our everyday manner of looking at things. In everyday life we
do not see things as they are perceived, but rather we weave together our per-
ceptions and our images of how the object would look in three-dimensional
space. For example, if we view a coin atan angle it appears oval-shaped, and
yet we reconstitute it as a round object with a certain thickness. In other
words, we do not simply see things from our own immediate perspective, but
also reconstitute the thing as it would appear from all possible angles. To use
a different expression, we take the thing as it is perceived "privately," and
reconstitute it by placing it in "public" space. Needless to say, natural science
is founded on this kind of seeing things in the context of "public" space.
The duality of things as seen from my perspective (prívate things) and
things as reconstituted in three-dimensional space (public things) creates the
sense of an opposition between "consciousness" and "the externa! world,"
producing the so-called subject-object oppositional construct. One conclu-
sion naturally drawn from this is that consciousness is a mere interna! event,
52
QUESTIONS POSED BY NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY
with the content of consciousness being nothing more than a mental image
or representation of the object existing outside of consciousness. A further
conclusion is that sensations such as color and taste may be reduced to con-
sciousness, while the object in itself exists in a world prior to sense, without
color, taste, or smell. Further, this conclusion involves the idea that in the
process of conceptualization the consciousness somehow alters the object, so
that the contents of consciousness do not represent the object as it is in itself.
Naturally, this process of alteration becomes a problem . By starting from this
premise, numerous philosophers have found themselves stuck in the bottle- "'l
neck of the mind-body problem, unable to move. <=> ~
If we take the basic position of dualism to be 1) that on the one hand ther1 '""" f
is the world of perception and on the other there are objects in themselves s .
preceding perception, 2) that the two are spatially separated, and 3) that they ~SI
@~·
stand in a relation of representing and represented, then we can say that <.., ":5--
l
Nishida's critique of the subject-object opposition is directed at the discrep-
ancy between this position and the reality of our experience. Our experience s, ~
directly participares in the outside world. It is not the case that we taste sorne- t"
thing delicious or feel fear inside a consciousness separate from the outside ~
world. The delicious food and the fearful object directly engage us. To put it
the other way around, a thing does not present itself merely as an object, but
from the beginning is presented as something delicious or something fearful.
There is no separation between two worlds there. In other words, there is no
"hidden back side" to a delicious apple or a fierce dog.
In the preface to the Zen no kenkyü, added in 1936, Nishida criticizes the
abstractness of the concept of reality that posits a world of perception over
against objects prior to perception. Quoting Gustav Fechner, he opposes "the
colorless and soundless perspective of night found in the natural sciences" to
the "perspective of the daytime, in which truth is things justas they are" (IG,
p. xxxiii). When we are faced with a flower ora tree, we relate to itas "a plant
alive with color and shape," not as a "purely material" entity. Moreover, we
do not merely relate to it as an object of an intelligible perception. A flower-
ing plant is also a thing that charms us and brings us serenity; in other words,
"it is established through our feeling and willing" (IG, p. 49).
The fact that we are charmed, experience serenity, or see in the plant "liv-
ing color and shape" is not for Nishida an interna! event of consciousness.
Again Nishida avoids as an "arbitrary view" the division of matters into interna!
mental phenomena and externa! material phenomena.
53
 FUJITA
It is true that in Zen no kenkyü Nishida asserts that "phenomena of con-
sciousness" are the true reality; indeed, the idea that "phenomena of con-
sciousness are the one and only reality" is a central thesis of Zen no kenkyü.
However, Nishida did not intend this as a notion of the interna! consciousness
of experience. Nishida explicitly rejects this interpretation as a misunderstand-
ing. The expression "phenomena of consciousness" does not refer to mental
phenomena as opposed to material phenomena. Nishida is pointing to the
simple knowledge of reality as reality, befare the arising of any thought of an
externa! being ora subjective being. "If there is redness, there is just redness"
(NKZ 15:180). 1,'he phrase "phenomena ofconsciousness" refers to the sim.ple..
presencing of a thing. When one sees a red salvia flower, there the salvia
flower itselfis manifest. \Vhen one hears the maple leaves rustling in the wind,
the leaves themselves are manifest. Reality is not away in sorne other place.
In true reality ... subjectivity and objectivity are not separate, and
actual nature is not a purely objective, abstract concept but a con-
crete fact of consciousness that includes both subject and object.
(IG, p. 72)
As mentioned above, we do not merely see things as objects of perception.
We are moved by the beauty of something; we see one thing as bringing
serenity, another as arousing fear. Just there the thing directly presents itself;
we are not enclosed in the movement of our emotions or in the inside of our
consciousness. The thing itself participares in the origination of our emo-
tions. When the sound ofa plucked chord moves our heart (-l.,Hili~..s;J.>), we
are not moved by a thought associated with the sound or by an analogy
drawn from it. The sound of the chord itself arouses our feeling.
r In his "Junsui keiken ni kansuru dansh?" M!.~*'f~¡:l*j T J.>ilí!it [Fragments
()
on pure experience] Nishida gives the example of "being struck by the feeling
of impermanence at the sight of a white cloud passing through the wide open
sky (NKZ 16:466) . Let us consider here the following poem by Saigyo "@11':
Smoke from Mt. Fuji
Carried off by the wind
Disappearing into I know not where
So too my heart (bñr.~U').
No doubt many interpretations of this poem are possible. Surely, however,
the poem is not to be read as a simple analogy between the wind-blown
smoke and the emptiness (~ L ~) of the self's existence. Nor is it simply a
54
QUESTIONS POSED BY NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY
matter of the emptiness of the self being projected onto the vanishing of the
smoke. Prior to any of this there is a direct feeling of impermanence aroused
by seeing the smoke vanish without a trace into the infinite sky. Only here,
in the unity ofthe smoke's fleeting momentariness and one's own feeling of
emptiness, does the poem take on life.
It could be said that reality itself "has the power to move our feelings and
will" (NKZ 16:468). In that sense, "feelings and will" have an "objective base"
(IG, p. 50). Or it could be said that things have a kind of coercive power over
the feelings and will. It is surely the case that the towering figure of a precip-
itous mountain impresses most people in a similar manner. However, it is cer-
tainly not the case that upon seeing the same thing we are al! always affected
in the same way. To use Nishida's example from Zen no kenkyü, everyone
does not appreciate the stars in a nighttime sky as "rivets of gold," as did the
poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). We don't all share Heine's sensitivity,
but at least we can understand his manner of appreciation; we can empathize
with him. And we could perhaps say that this is so because the stars of the
nighttime sky have the "power" to let us empathize with this way of seeing.
As mentioned above, it could be said that, in the sense of including "feel-
ing and will," that which "harbors both subject and object" (.:t~í:-~Lt-:1.>) \
is concrete reality (~1-téi(].;J.~ ). We must then say that ~ny "purely material",/ 1 l;
~ thmg prior to sensible perception is a product of thought which resituates ~~ ­
tiUSconcrete reality in three-dimertsional space, and in this sense "is .tha.t rf"
which is most abstraer, irLpther words, that which is furthest removed from
í:h~ true state of reality" (IG, p. 69, modified).
The Logic of Fluidity
We can use "public" measurements for, and speak in "public" language about,
things that have been resituated in three-dimensional space. But reality itself,
which we experience directly befare any separation of intellect, feeling, and
will, can neither be measured nor communicated in such a "public" manner.
In Zen no kenkyü ~chapter 8) Nishida expresses this point as follows:
"We must realize ((§ {~) t e true state of this reality with our en tire being
rather than reflect o'hif_, alyze it, or express it in words" (IG, p. 51). Nishida's
critique of the subjed-object opposition is at the same time a critique of the
idea that truth can be grasped using "public" measures and "public" lan-
guage.
~~w 55
 FU ]ITA
Take, for example, the action of rotating one 's arms in a circle or of swing-
ing one's legs back and forth. A physicist could, of course, give a scientific
description and explanation of these actions by measuring the position of the
arms or legs and the amount of time elapsed . And yet this would not explain
one's consciousness of the continuity or unity of the action . The emotions
ha ve a similar dynamic character. The emotion of sadness, for example, is not
always the same in character-sometimes it moves in the direction of grief,
sometimes in the direction of self-abandon, and sometimes in the direction
of anger. Changing direction and varying in intensity, it moves continuously
and without rest. We cannot capture this quality in the single word sadness;
but neither can we grasp it precisely by categorizing it as grief or anger, for
we would then lose sight of its integral quality.
We attempt the infinite division and detailed description of this kind of
perpetually changing thing. We attempt to understand such fluid things by
reconstructing the whole out of countlessly divided and rigidified parts. Or
else we excise one moment from the perpetually changing thing and take that
momentary aspect to be representative of the whole. And yet what we actu-
ally experience is not an accumulation of divided up and rigidified parts, but
rather something dynamic in character that refuses to be apportioned. Paced
with a thing ofthis nature, we can only (to use Nishida's expression) "realize
it with our whole being" ( § 1-ll T 6 ). Or, following Bergson, we must "intuit"
it; we must "pro be deeply into life, and in a kind of spiritual auscultation feel
the pulse ofthe soul" (BERGSON 1959a, p. 1,408).
The year befare the publication of Zen no kenkyü, the same year he
assumed his post at Kyoto University, Nishida wrote an essay entitled "Beru-
guson no tetsugakuteki hohoron" «!v ~l'J:.--O)'l1f"t éf.J 1Jit~~ [Bergson's philo-
sophical method], in which he characterized Bergson's "intuition" as the
.~nly method capable of "seemg from the mside of a thing," "seeing a thmg
by becoming that thing itself," or "knowing the true state of a thing"(NKZ
1:319). The sympathy Nishida showed toward Bergson's thought 2 around
2 In the preface to Shiso to taiken .\!'. '\!'.1: 1*~ [Thought and experience] (1915 ) is the following
passage :
When I first carne to Kyoto, my thought was influenced on the one hand by the posi-
tion of the so-called "Pure Logic School" of Rickert and others, and on the other hand
by Bergson's theory of " pure duratio." Through sympathi zing with the latter, and gain-
ing the power of reflcction from the former, I benefited greatly from both . (NKZ
1:203 )
56
QUESTIONS POSEO BY NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY
the time of his move to Kyoto appears to have influenced his interpretation
of the idea of "pure experience." In his notes for his lectures outlining phi-
losophy, written around the end of the Meiji period, Nishida defines "pure
experience" as "autonomous, qualitatively continuous change. m This
definition is clearly influenced by Bergson's interpretation of "pure duration"
as "nothing other than a succession of qualitative change, a melting togeth-
er, penetrating one another, without precise contours, without any tendency
to exteriorize oneselfwith respect to the other, without any relation to num-
ber" (BERGSON 1959b, p. 70). Actually, in these lecture notes Nishida refers
to Bergson's idea of "pure duration" as follows:
Reality is continuously changing; it does not stop for an instant. Yet
the manner of this change is such that each moment points on
toward the coming future state, and contains the already expired
past state. Bergson's "interna! duration, pure duration" expresses
this. This is the state of our every experience, yet no amount of
analysis from the outside, no matter how many thousands of words
it employs, can ever exhaustively describe it. It can only be directly
experienced from the inside. (NKZ 15:185)
If we compare this with the interpretation in ~en no kenkyü, the emphasis
here on the dynamic nature of pure experience stands out. Of course, in Zen
no kenkyü too "the manner of the formation of true reality" is conceived as
the "differentiating development" (:Jt 1t9€ ~) or "development and comple-
tion" (9€~5'é!í.X:) of and by a single thing. Underlying this notion of "devel-
opment and completion" is, no doubt(Hegel's idea of Begriff)n compari-
son, the lecture notes interpret pure experience more in line with Bergson's
"pure duration." In "Bergson's Philosophical Method," written about this
time, Nishida uses the following expression: "Reality that is directly given to
us is fluid (1JIT.,I;89 ), developmental; it does not come to rest for a moment; in
other words, it is something alive" (NKZ 1:320).
Were this ceaselessly moving "something alive" to be made the object of
division and analysis, it would no doubt "dry up and rigidify, lose its vitality,
and be reduced to a kind of intellectual sign" (NKZ 1:326 ). In "Bergson's
Philosophical Method" Nishida explicitly avoids as erroneous the approach in
which one starts from a position of"knowledge by way of signs" Üffi}éf.J~~)
3 Nishida gives this definition in English .
57

FUJITA
and proceeds from there to see things as a whole-in other words, the
method of moving from analysis to intuition. Nishida regards the true philo-
sophical method to commence with "experiencing directly from the inside"
that which changes and flows-in other words, the method of moving from
intuition to analysis. If we may apply the label "the logic of rigidity" to the
method that infinitely divides its object and then attempts to understand the
whole by reconstructing it from these separare pieces, then perhaps "the logic
of fluidity" would be a good name for the method of Nishida and Bergson,
which attempts to grasp the ceaselessly changing thing in its very dynamism.
Experience and Language
As noted earlier, for Nishida directly experienced reality cannot be thor-
oughly revealed in language; it must be "realized with our whole being." In
Zen no kenkyü, pure experience is said to be "prior even to the judgement of
what this color or this sound might be" (IG, p. 3, modified). Again, in "Frag-
ments" he writes as follows:
True intuition is prior to any judgment. Ifthe wind "rustles" (~1.7{
;'!-''b;:::·v\t'"'-lf'), then this "rustling" is the reality ofthe intuition.
There is no "the wind" as the subject ofthe event (~i.l>'c\t>-)::.c
'iJ¡j: \t '). In reality there is neither grammatical subject nor predi.catf..
(NKZ 16:283)
For example, let us consider the case where one sees a peony flower and
makes the judgment, "This flower is red." In making such a judgment one
grasps the color of the flower in front of one by way of a universal concept.
Such ras in of articulars by way of universal cate ories lays an im ortant
r~le in our eyeryda.y life. According to Kurt Goldstein, there is a type of lin-
guistic disorder in which the patient, while aware of the meaning of words
themselves, is unable to grasp particular things in relation to universal cate-
gories, and is thus unable to answer the question of what a particular thing is
(GOLDSTEIN 1957, pp. 69ft). For such patients it is not the inability to say the
name of a thing but the inability to universalize particulars that no doubt
leads to the most severe difficulties in everyday life.
Although it is thus extremely important that we be able to grasp things in
terms of universal concepts, at the same time this involves ignoring the subtle
differences between particular things. In other words, it involves doing vio-
58
~~"' "' ~ ·: \'\"'::;, 11'. """:"", v· · " "'' . . o4 •·· r 111
~ l ~ l ~·- 1"' 11'" T '{',- ~ ~ ~\¡'( ftvv~~t;Vl . ~-j;;.J .
J~~ ~·QUESTIONS PO~ED BY NISHIQA'S PHILOSOPHY
.\)V"'
o.J-1~ ~
~ ~~;-~J\~~.
\\~ ~~.~
lence to the individual phenomena. This is because particular things possess
such subtle differences that they cannot be reduced into universal concepts.
In this sense, to make judgments about phenomena is to engage in abstraction,
since judgments capture only a single aspect of things. In Nishida's words,
judgments-in comparison to primal experiences-are inevitably "something
meager in content" (IG, p. 9, slightly modified). "The present consciousness
of reality as such" is "the purest thing," holding the richest canten t.
Furthermore, not only is a judgment "meager in content," but once it is
made-once a universalization has taken place-words themselves come to
possess a singular power. In short, attent1on 1s drawn away from subtle dif-
~ces in individual things. As soon as one judges that "this flower is red,"
attention is no longer paid to the flower's uniqueness, to the color found only
in this particular variety of peony. Or again, consider the fact that one is
taught as a child that a rainbow has seven colors; due to this preconception
one loses concern for those subtle shades that fall between the seven colors.
a form
...--
----
It could even be said that _Qgr experience itself comes to take place only in
----
adapt10d to the universal categories of langnage... Earlier we claime
that emotions are originally something not set, that they move ceaselessly
through a wide variety of intertwined aspects. However, when expressed in
language this wide range gets shaved clown. We become convl.nced that this
shaved-down expression represents the essential substance of the intricate
emotion we experience. Not stopping there, our emotions themselves become
adapted to language; they become fitted to the mold oflanguage. In a sense,
emotions are made and classified within society. The framework of emotion-
labels exerts a powerful influence, perhaps so much so that it becomes impos-
sible to have emotions outside that framework.
And yet in most cases, despite this ordering and categorization, there are
vibrant movements of emotion that exceed this framework. Or it might be
that if we observed, without preconceptions, our everyday emotions justas they
are we would find that they always have this quality of vibrant movement.
Usually, however, this vibrancy lasts only as long as the moment ofthe experi-
ence, and is soon forgotten and lost. In the end, the intricate folds of emotion,
which might readily be seen through preconceptionless observation, lie
unrecognized to one who is bound by the ready-made molds for emotions.
We could say that when Nishida writes of the state "befare any judgment
is added," he is referring to the state befare the content of experience is
altered and its range ofvariety shaved clown by the power oflanguage. In his
59
 -~
l,?' 7--f"l
v--.rl'i"' VI \' )V
r· FU JITA
\ V vf{l"' \
1
QUESTIONS POSED BY NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY

~ ¡,,, peciod he wcite' explicitly of the limir, of langu,ge. In the 19 39 ''"Y

"Keiken kagaku" ff.~r+~ [Empirical science]" he writes:
Por example ... when we say "a horse is running there," we have
rigidified our experience .... We ha ve introduced a static something
in place of an action. Language deviates from and solidifies a mere
fragment of the living maternal body of experience. While serving
the purposes of utility, this gives rise to something fundamentally
different from experience. Compared with experience, language
possesses in itself an essential IlmJtatwn. ~ 9:232) - -
Nishida was keenly aware of the danger that, due to the utility value of lan-
guage, the gap between language and experience would be ignored.
~+¡~· ccWhatness)) and ccThatness)) (Mono to kotol
We have already quoted Nishida's explanation of pure experience as occur-
ring "before the addition of any judgment as to what this color or this sound
is." Yet it cannot simply be said that our experience takes place before judg-
.-ment, be Q!e la~uage .. Por lan ua e a ·e¡ ates m experience ~ht
from the very beginning. The moment we see a cherry blossom, we see it as
a cherry blossom. E ven if we don't yet know its name, we at least see itas a
flower. When we hear the gurgling of a stream, from the beginning we hear
it as the gurgling of a stream. Naturally there are cases where we cannot
immediately make a judgment, but even in such cases we perceive the
unknown thing as something unfamiliar, or for example as something that
"looks like a human figure" or "sounds Jike an explosion." It is not the case
that first there is a primal experience free of judgment which is subsequently
And yet neither is it the case that things in our experience are arranged
only according to various "as ... " judgments. That is, we also see and hear
things that cannot be fully captured in the " ... " place of an "as ... " judgment.
For example, the particular color of a hydrangea flower cannot be fully
expressed by the word "blue." Nor is it only things seen or heard that can-
not be exhausted by language. We see a fountain penas a fountain pen, but
at the same time we might regard itas one that, though worn-out, still pos-
sesses a special writing quality that other fountain pens lack; or perhaps we
remember that it was used to write an important letter ata particular time in
one's life. To any "whatness" are tied countless "thatnesses." We could say
!hat we do not merely percejye a "whatness" as a "whatness," but always per-
ceive it together with its "thatnesses." Kimura Bin refers to this fact as "the
coexistence of whatness and thatness" (iJO)~-=-~O);J:\:~) (KIMURA 1982, pp.
20-21 ). This expression precisely reveals the nature of our experience.
"Thatness" is strongly tied to our feelings and volitions as well. The
painful memory of a failed romance is brought back by the fountain pen used
at that time to write a !ove letter. At the same time the pen conveys to one
that this painful emotion is now changing into one of nostalgia. That I felt
pain at that time and that I look back on those days with nostalgia
(W;ij:<.\l;t-').::.~,·l~i.PL.-<~tl.l-=.~) are also "thatnesses" which accompany a
"whatness." According to Nishida, su eh feelings and volitions are precise! y
what give concreteness to a thing ( 'b O)):
Contrary to popular belief, true reality is not the subject matter of
~spassionate knowledge; it is established through our feeling and
willing. It is not simply an ex1stence but something with meaning.

.,._______
4
-
divided up by way of language._Rather, onr acQuired understanding of th.e
world participares from the beginning in experience itse]f.
.
Translator's note: The Japanese words mono tll) and koto .:tare nororiously difficulr ro rrans-
If we were to remove our feelings and the will from this world of
actuality, it would no longer be a concrete fact-it would become
an abstraer concept. (IG, p. 49)
We look at things in combination with numerous thoughts and feelings. In
lare, parricularly when wrirren in rhe hiragana syllabary, which allows rhem rhe widesr range of
.this sense, the things we see are filled with "meaning." They are full of
rheir many meanings. In rhis arricle rhe mulriple meanings ofrhe two words form rhe background
of a particular meaning for each rerm developed here by the aurhor (Fu jira) drawing on rhe work "expression" (hyogen rzlJi.). In actuality there is no mere "whatness" stripped
of Kimura Bin *Hif!l:. The aurhor suggesred rhe German words Washeit and Danheit for mono and of these elements. E ven if such a thing could be conceived of, it would be a
koto respecrively, and I have somewhar hesiranrly gone from rhere ro rhe English words "wharness"
and "rharness." Alrhough parricularly rhe larrer mayar firsr appear puzzling, rhe two terms should
mere abstraer construct. Our world is "constructed upon feeling and voli-
be raken in rhe following sense: "What ir is is a painring. Iris a painting that m oves me ro tears." tion" (IG, 49, slightly modified).
These meanings are developed by rhe aurhor in the following pages. Finally, ir should be menrioned Language is unable to exhaust these kinds of "thatnesses." The word nos-
rhar rhe linguisric awkwardness unavoidable here in translarion does nor occur in the ongmal.
talgic is unable to express the full range ofwhat I felt or am feeling. On this
60
61
 FU JITA
point Kimura speaks ofthe "pollution" language inflicts upon "thatnesses." As
we have already noted, Nishida claims that language does not express experi-
ence itself, but rather selects one aspect and rigidifies it. He points out an
essentiallimitation inherent in language: that which can be expressed in lan-
guage is merely an "abstract shell" ofphenomena. More than this we can only
"realize with our whole being." In order to communicate the "nostalgia"
that I experienced, I can only appeal to the sympathy of someone who has
had the same experience. The only way to finally convey the unique writing
quality of my fountain pen is to have someone actually try writing with it.
However, this does not mean that truth is only in "thatnesses," and that
words are mere appellations bestowed on these as accompaniments. Nor does
it mean that "thatnesses" are of necessity "polluted" when expressed in the
form of language. This is because there is no such thing as a pure truth existing
before language. As mentioned above, our previously acquired understanding
of the world, and thus language, participares in our experience from the very
beginning. In other words, "thatnesses" do not stand prior to language, but
are first experienced in conjunction with the workings of language. When we
see a cherry blossom as a cherry blossom, at the same time we experience the
brightening of our spirits. We could say that "thatnesses" exist together with
language ( l .::cJ¡;t § 1rU::c'bl:ihl.J); they "coexist" with language.
As we have said, on the one hand Nishida points out an essential limita-
tion oflanguage. We do not usually see things justas they show themselves.
Through "the power of past experience"-that is, through "explaining"
things by way of an already acquired understanding of the world-we are
constantly "changing" things as we see them. In this manner our "interna!
nature" deeply participares in our perception and in the "phenomena of con-
sciousness" as a whole. Nishida links this to the fact that in our "phenomena
of consciousness," "intellect, feeling, and will" operate together without
being divided (cf. IG, pp. 31, 47-48).
Secondly, we must not fail to point out that language not only rigidifies phe-
nomena, it on the contrary also has the power to "bring to life" or "evoke"
rhe full nature of a "thatness." Kimura himself notes this by way of reference
to Basho's haiku:
An old pond!
A frog leaps in
The sound of the water
62
QUESTIONS POSED BY NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY
In this haiku what is being expressed is not simply the literal, surface mean-
ing of a frog jumping into an old pon d. Rather, the poem expresses the event
of a uniform stillness shattered by the sound of a frog's leap into the water.
Further, this evokes a scene within us where, precisely through this shatter-
ing, the inicial stillness is deepened into a more profound stillness, and thus
is revea!ed to us in condensed form the nature from which we are alienated
in our everyday activities . A mere seventeen-syllable poem cuts open and
reveals such a world to us.
In this sense we could say that language, at the same time as it expresses
"whatnesses," gives dwelling place within them to "thatnesses" in infinite
number. When a word is listened to, these infinite "thatnesses" are evoked in
the listener. To put it the other way around, the listener transcends the word
to hear the "thatnesses."
We could also refer to this as going through and transcending language to
en ter into (sannyü 1fJ; A ) the world of "thatnesses." Nishida's statement that
true reality "is constituted out of feeling and volition" may point to what we
have here spoken of as "thatnesses" coexisting with language .
Abbreviations
IG An Inquiry into the Good (NISHIDA 1990).
NKZ Nishida Kitaro zenshü 1§ 83 j¿i ~ .1'1~~~ [The complete works of Nishi-
da Kitaro], 3rd printing, 1978-80. 19 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
References cited
BERGSON, H .
1959a CEuvres. Introduction a la métephysique. Textes annotés par Andrés
Robinete. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France .
1959b CEuvres. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Textes
annotés par Andrés Robinet. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
GOLDSTEIN, Kurt
1957 Ningen Ara,. Tokyo: Seishin Shobo. Translation of Human Nature
in the Light of Psychopathology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1951.
KlMURa Bin *H~
1982 ]ikan to jiko ~ Fa, e § C. [Time and the self]. Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha.
63
 FUJITA

NISHIDA Kitar6 @83~~fl~

1911 Zen no kenkyii ~O)liJf~. Tokyo: Kodokan. (reprinted in 1921) The Language of the Kyoto School of Philosophy
1990 An Inquiry into the Good. English translation of Zen no kenkyu by
Masao Abe and Christopher Ives. New Haven: Y ale University Press.
YAGI SEIICHI

N THE FIRST PART OF THIS ESSAY I would like to show the problematic
I implied in the use of language by the Kyoto school, as represented by
Nishida Kitar6. Through the examination of language use, I believe, we can
minimize the possibility of misunderstandings. The key terms ofNishida's phi-
losophy are keiken ~,l.~ ( experience ), jikaku § Jt (awakening to the Self), and
basho :f:4lf ?JT (topos). Let us begin our examination of language with the under-
standing that Nishida's writings are the philosophical expression of his
jikaku; they are, that is to say, the explication of the horizon of his jikaku, in
which he tries to show exactly what this experience implies and to clarifY the
overall nature of the reality that manifested itself in and as his jikaku. He pre-
sented a picture of this reality observed not as an object, but as that within
which he understood himself. In a sense he objectified the entire structure of
jikaku.

On Language: Descriptive or Expressive?

It is generally held that language has three main functions: description,

expression, and conation. Depending upon which function is dominant there
are three types of language: descriptive (referential), expressive (emotive),
and normative (conative). Let us loo k at the first two in sorne detail befo re
considering the third in the final section of this paper.
Descriptive language is used when "we" exchange information about
objectified matters in arder to cognize, control, or utilize them. In our age
the typical example is the language of the natural sciences in unison with the
related areas of technology and economics. This language is meaningless, as
is well known, when its referent cannot be identified or when its sentences
cannot be verified or falsified. Furthermore, this language must be clear and
univoca!. Otherwise it cannot function as a conveyor of information.

64 65
 LANGUAGE AND THE KYOTO SCHOOL
YAGI

lt is important to note that poetic or literary language, which is expressive

Expressive language is used when "I" want to let others know realities in
"me" that cannot be externally observed: feelings, emotions, experiences (not in nature, is not meaningless even if it "describes" an imaginary world.
Although novels are generally written in a descriptive style, the language of
their object, but their content and mode ), thoughts, images, and so on. This
language need not be verified, but must be understood. Thus expressive lan- novels is expressive in nature, so it is irrelevant whether they have actual ref-
guage is meaningless not when it is unverifiable but when it is incomprehen- erents or not. A romance is not a history. We must thus make a strict dis-
tinction between the form and the type of language. From this it follows that
sible. If someone says, "I have a headache," I understand what this means for
a philosophical construction of the horizon of Jikaku, or the objectification
I know the term head (as head is a "descriptive language" word) and I under-
of the structure of it, or the picture of reality se en from inside (J'ikaku) is not
stand the meaning of ache (as I can find in m y own experiences something I
also callan "ache," although Ido not know ifmy "headache" and that ofthe eo ipso an objective description of the reality in which we find ourselves. If it
is asserted that the picture contains an objective cognition, one should
other personare, as a sensation, the same ). Thus ifl can identifY in myself the
content of another person's statement I can understand it. I understand a demonstrate it through objective verification.
In his first work, Zen no kenkyü ~O)~Jf~ [A study of the good] (NISHIDA
story through the process of transforming the words I hear into mental
1911), Nishida described reality in its manifestation "as" pure experience. He
images of my own. I understand another's thoughts when I translate them
then asked what the sub· ect of the description is-that is what i · at us
into my own thoughts.
, ees and des · reflected on the nature o 'ikak ·n an attempt to clar-
The thesis of Descartes's cogito ergo sum is expressive. Cogito is not a
ifY it; he tried, in other words, to bring to self-realization what Jikaku is. He
description of one's thinking, but a simultaneous duality of the fact of one's
attempted in this way to transcend all rationalities, to attain the ultimate
thinking and one's awareness of it. This is the language of the reason that has
awoken to itself. The whole language of Cartesian thinking is thus the lan-
Jikaku that can objectifY all parcial or lovver Jikakus. This ultimate standpoint
he called the '~endent predicative sphere" m~ái:JizH!Hm-that which,
guage of the self-aware reason, or the linguistic expression of the reason's
gras s, wra s, and sustains one's entire sub'ectivi NISHIDA 1930). At the
self-awareness. Therefore when Descartes "proved" the objective existence of
last stage of his life he conceptualized itas topo~ in which all individ-
God on the basis of innate ideas his language made a skip from the expres-
uals act upon each other. As pointed out above, this is an explication of his
sive into the descriptive-an unjustifiable transgression. This is the destiny of
a rationalist philosophy that dares to speak of the transcendent on the basis Jikaku,_E§fjiJféscnptio@f an objective observation that he made .
While Nishida often worked with the concepts of German philosophy, his
of rational thinking alone.
students Nishitani and Hisamatsu wrote in a more enuinel Buddhist lan-
Religious language is expressive, not descriptive, in nature. "It is no longer
guage. This was a natural development of the Kyoto school, insofar as it
I wño hve~ Chnst lives in me," said Paul ~' 20). lli did not observe
Christ who lived in him. When we take into consideration another statement
reiñai'ned faithful to its Buddhist origin and nature. Thus Nishida's basho -iD
became in Nishitani the field of power in which all existences (beings as non-
of his, "To me, to live is Christ" (Phi! 1:21 ), we perceive his awareness that
his whole existence is animated by the power that he identified with Christ,
beings) interpenetrate, containing each other infinitely (NISHITANI 1987a). %"----
Though Nishitani as a philosopher did not deny that the structure of the field
who had been revealed in him (Gal1:16). We can compare "Christ" in these
can be described as the unity of Lagos ( ri :(!.) and factual entities (Ji~), he,
words with "the true man ofno rank" ofLin-chi, the "formless self' ofHisa-
as a religious thinker, did not speak ofthe transcendent. The field was to him
matsu Shin'ichi, or the activated Buddha nature. That means that the Christian
simply the field of mutual interpenetration (J'iJimuge ~~?J\H'!}) (NISHITANI
who is aware of the activity of Christ in himself cannot eo ipso objectifY Him
1987a, p. 169). Thus he used such genuinely Buddhist categories as kü ~
as the heavenly Christ, so as to posit him as an objective being. This would
be also an unjustifiable jump from expressive to descriptive language, a jump (sünyatii) and engi *~¡g, (pratítya-samutpiida).
One may say that this strategy is more acceptable to modern thinking. But
that has given rise to many ambiguities in Christianity. It has, for example,
if one maintains that mutual interpenetration is an objective fact, one should
prevented Christians from identif)ring "Christ" with the human Self.

67
66
 YAGI
verif)r it, for mutual interpenetration is primarily a cognition whose root lies in
jikaku: I am I only in relation to others. The mutual interpenetration of objec-
tive entities is not to be denied, but for the sake of strictness one should show
in what sense, say, my glasses and the eraser on my desk penetrare each other.
Of course the starting point ofKyoto-school thought-i.e., experience, or
immediate experience-is extraordinarily important. In its presence it
becomes intuitively clear that our reason and language, the indispensable
tools we use to order, shape, and manipulare incoming sensual data, recon-
struct these data in their own way (YAGI 1995). Such reconstruction is done
in order to make the data communicable. Therefore even descriptive lan-
guage, far from being a faithful representation of reality, is a rational and lin-
guistic construct. Thus we, the users of language, are separated from reality
by a thick wall of rational verbalization, the breaking through of which
reveals reality as it is.
We see then that subject and object are inseparable, that there is no sub-
stance called "I," that our being is constituted by our relations with other
entities, that I am penetrated by the entities I encounter, and so on. Mutual
interpenetration is above all a matter of jikaku, not of objective observation,
though we can objectif)r it at the secondary leve! of cognition . It is true that
we are enclosed by the wall of language, that we are prisoners of the cocoon
of the virtual reality that is the verbalized world (cf. WITTGENSTEIN 19 S3).
Kyoto-school philosophy is right in that it starts from immediate experience,
that is to say from the breaking through of verbalized reality. But this expe-
~
rience can be communic~ly by expressive language L119t by descriptive
language. There is no direct bridge from the former to the latter. The
"description" of pure experience is to be understood, not verijied. In this way
the philosophy of the Kyoto school becomes the first step toward attaining
reality as it is.
To Hisamatsu jikaku was simply the awakening of the Self to the Self. In
his explanation of jikaku he seldom used the concepts of German philosophy
but rather talked as a Zen master ( though in his philosophical essays on satori
he compared his views with those of European philosophy using Western
conceptuality). His language was purely expressive. He did not, needless to
say, speak of the transcendent God as an object over against us. The formless
Self shows itself in, through, and as his jikaku. Of course one may reflect on
it and-insofar as the process of reflection necessitates that it be objectified
to the Immanent-Transcendent-one may speak of God as the Other. But
68
UAGE AND THE KYOTO SCHOOL
this is no longer the primary fact: God as the Other and God as the ultimare
subject must be one (HISAMATSU 1949).
Hisamatsu restricted his language purely to the expression of his jikaku,
avoiding the use of descriptive language in his religious discourses. His lan-
guage was thus free of unjustifiable jumps from the expressive to the descriptive
mode, and as such remains a stumbling block to those who reduce religion
ro objectivity.
On the Noun: Substantive or Verbal?
What are the referents of the lan ua e iven that it
..... ~ mam y uses expressive Jangua~? As. shown above, it is not ~ecess~ry for
expressive language to have substanttve referents. There are vanous kinds of
noun: common nouns, material nouns, collective nouns, abstraer nouns,
proper nouns, and verbal nouns (gerunds and infinitives). A common noun
generally has a real referent when used in descriptive language. This is also
the case with material, collective, and proper nouns. And a Platonist would
insist that this is the case with an abstraer noun as well: beauty itself-an idea
of the beautiful-exists in the noetic world apart from our empírica! world,
and this is the referent of the word beauty. Be that as it m ay, we will not dis-
cuss that here ( though it is hardly imaginable, as Aristotle indicated, that
beauty itself exists apart from the beautiful).
Let us examine the case of the verbal noun in a wider sense. The word
birth, for example, is verbal in nature as it means to be born, and we do not
claim that there exists an objective something-an entity-called "birth."
Verbal nouns in general denote a dynamic state, nota thing. This is the case
with the word lije. What is "life"? In descriptive language it denotes a living
thing as a unit oflife: a cell ora living body. These are the primary objects of
the science of life. In expressive language "life" primarily indica tes our expe-
rience of human life, involving happiness, sorrow, struggle, success, and so
on, something that is related in a biography or romance or discussed in philo-
sophical or religious literature.
But does the word not mean something supernatural or spiritual, some-
thing invisible that, when it enters a body, anima tes it and, when it leaves,
causes its death? But why do we have such a notion? When we understand
the word notas a verbal noun but as a common noun used in descriptive lan-
guage, we involuntarily assume that the word has an objective referent like all
69
 YAGI
other common nouns. This leads to confusion. Verbal nouns denote-even
in descriptive language-not objective things but dynamic states. The word
liJe means primarily "to live." But what lives? Ifwe construct a sentence from
the infinitive alone, we would say "A living thing lives." Here we make a dis-
tinction between the subject of the sentence (a living thing) and the predi-
cate (lives). But the subject is not something that can be separated from the "liv-
ing." The subject is the whole of the living thing in its peculiar form, unity,
and continuity, and the predicare "describes" its dynamic state. This is true
of all nouns that are verbal in nature. Between "birth" and "death" there are
breathing, eating, sleeping, walking, laboring, thinking, writing, speaking,
loving, suffering, hoping and so on, and there are nominal forms of such
gerunds (to love-loving-love). We come to the conclusion: There are
nouns that are verbal in nature. These nouns denote dynamic states, and lack
the kind of objective referents that common nouns have.
Many religious terms are verbal in nature. One example from the New
Testament is the above-mentioned sentence: "Tome, to live is Christ" (Phi!
1:21 ). The subject of the sen ten ce is the infinitive of the verb "live" and
"Christ" is the predicate. "Christ" is here neither a common noun nor a
proper noun, but, as the identification shows, virtually a verbal noun. As far
as this sentence is concerned there is no objective being or person called
"Christ." "To me" suggests that Paul is using here not objective (descriptive)
language but expressive language. Paul states here his awareness that his
whole existence, his "life," is animated by the power he calls "Christ." When
we combine this sentence with "I do not dare tell you those things which
Christ did not accomplish through me" [i.e., the mission done by Paul him-
self] (Rom 15:18), we see that the mission ofPaul was, in his awareness, the
work of Christ. Paul is not the "instrument" of Christ, as many modern ver-
sions translate it-Paul's activity was at the same time the activity of Christ.
It is important to note that this is oneness of activity, not of substance. 1 But
this oneness is not that of a lord and his envoy, though this relationship is
often used in the O!d and New Testament, for the mission ofPaul is, histor-
ically speaking, his own activity. Even so, his mission can still be seen as the
activity of Christ-Paul's activity and the activity of Christ are one in the
1
The Gnostics advocared the substanrial oneness of God and human, something that, to the
Christian consciouness, is impossible. Nishitani, discussing the Einheit im Wirken of Meister Eck-
harr, showed the difference between oneness of activity and that of substance (NISHITANI 1987b,
pp. 34-53.
70
LANGUAGE ANO THE KYOTO SCHOOL
sense seen in the words ofl John 4:7,12: "Beloved, let us !ove one another,
for !ove is from God. Everyone who !oves has been born of God and knows
God .... Ifwe love one another God remains in us." In love there is a unity
of divine and human activity, not a unity of divine and human substance.
But why is this not also a unity of substance? Suffice it to say, metaphori-
cally, that in my speech my bodily activity and my personal activi are one,
thoug , as a persona su Ject, a · e y 1 entical with my voice
~echanism. In th1s way there 1s oneness of d1vme and human activity: "It is ----
God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work" (Phi!
2:13). Another example: the name of God, JHWH, has a certain relation to
the name God reveals to Moses (Exodus 3:14): "I am that I am" (or I shall
be that I shall be-Hebrew has two tenses, perfect and imperfect, and this
verb is in the imperfect tense) (SEK.INE 1979, p. 67). The nature of God is
revealed in a verbal sentence: I am [with you (cf. Exodus 3:12)]. IfGod is
with us, each of us, then God is the field of divine power that we call history. ~V
This is also the case with Buddhism. Christianity very often makes trans- J/f...¡. .
gressive jumps from the realm of expressive language to that of descriptive · ~ •• ).,
language (or rather New Testament language has often been misunderstood "'"{'/~
to be descriptive in nature). In contrast, Buddhists (Zen Buddhists especially)
realize that their language is an expression of their self-awareness. There are
occasional cases where the verbal nouns are mistaken for common nouns, so that
they appear to denote substances. Hisamatsu rejected this interpretation-to
him Buddhist language is purely an expression of Self-awareness, so that it is
erroneous to objectif)r it.
Here I would like to point out that Hisamatsu's terms too are verbal in
nature. This is the case with the "Formless Self' of Hisamatsu, for nothing
formless can be denoted by a common noun-the referent of a common
noun must have unity, a distinct, continuing for~, and an objectively
verifiable self-identity. Indeed, Hisamatsu himself stated that sentient beings
(by which he meant human beings in this context) enter nirvana and become
selfless subjects (in the selfless subject the Formless Self manifests itself). The •
selfless subjects ( the Formless Self) "work and fly free! y about practicing
merey. This is Buddha. There is no other Buddha than this true Buddha"
(HISAMATSU 1949, p. 83). The Formless Self denotes a dynamic state, nota
static entity. The Formless Self is, to my understanding, the activated Buddha-
nature, activated in such a way that it becomes aware of itself. A linguistic
analysis of the term "Buddha-nature" in Buddhist literature is beyond the
71

YAGI
scope of this paper; as far as I know, the use of the term among contempo-
rary Zen Buddhists is verbal, not substantive-nominal.
Nishitani says, "The relation of mutually penetrating [I translate the term
egoteki kankei @lliÉI91l.\11!f- not as "mutual penetration" but as "mutually
penetrating"] is nothing other than the power that gathers and combines all
things to oneness, nothing other than the power that makes the world the
world. The field ofthis power is the field of kü (Sünyatii)" (NrSHITANI 1987a,
p. 169). If my translation is not wrong-for that which can be referred to as
a "power" is not the static state of mutual penetratedness but the act of
mutually-penetrating-then the "field" Nishitani speaks of denotes a dynam-
ic-verbal state, not something static like geometrical space. If so, the word
sünyatii is in its nature not an abstract but a verbal noun: it denotes not an
abstract-privative quality but a dynamic condition.
This is also true of the topos ( basho) of Nishida. T~world of individuals is
J understood to be the self-negation of the Absolute. Ihe Absolute is¿_ruly
· absohrte when it recognizes itscltin the relative beings that are its negation. In
~he Absolme and the relative are, in their opposition, one. Each---.m:a-
every relative thing reflects the Absolute in itself. This means that individuals
work upon each other-they negate each other and in this negation they
posit each other. Through this mutual negating and positing they-unique,
independent individuals-form a unity. Again: in working upon each other
individuals form themselves, and this self-formation of the individual is at the
same time-in the manner of the identity of contraries-the self-formation of
the whole, of the Absolute itself.
The basho of Nishida is like this (NISHIDA 1946, pp. 374-76, 396-99).
Reality as a whole is verbal, not substantial, for "substancial" indicates the
quality of having one's ground of being in oneself, apart from and indepen-
dent of other entities. is not the case with Nishida's topos, where bein s are
rounded not in themselves but in their relation w1t ot er emgs, at is to
s~ self-negatlon of the Absolute. I h1s Is-thÍs~mst be-primarily a
~erbal, not a substantive, way ofcllinking, rooted in jikaku and not in a log-
ical analysis of ontological conceptions.
The Bible is principally the story of how God and humans act toward each
other. In a similar way, Nishida tells us the philosophical story of the Self-
negation of God, which is a synchronic picture rather than a diachronic history.
However, it is often not clear whether Nishida is relating the acts of God in
history or merely elucidating-despite his best intentions-the logical relations
72\~~~J~ ~
LANGUAGE AND THE KYOTO ScHOOL
~·
of his major concepts. It seems to me that Nishida is not quite free from the
Hegelian identific,tion Butbis succesoo<S, Nishl·
tani an Hisamatsu, appear to ave overcome t ts problematic to make room
for a genuinely Buddhist picture of reality in a purely religious language.
On Mood: Indicative or Imperative?
The third function of language is conation, which involves the use of orders,
requests, threats, and other such verbal methods to affect the addressee. Note
that descriptive and expressive language m ay be employed in this way, as in
"Wolves are coming !" ("Attention!" "Help me!") or "I am very tired" ("Let
me take a short rest"). We will see that the language of the Kyoto school,
which is expressive in nature but which can objectify jikaku as a description
(section 1 of this essay), is able to function as conative.
It is often all vides no round for
et ics. How justified is this criticism1 Hisamatsu spoke of the Formless Self
,_.as the ultima te subjectivity of the enlightened. This does not mean that in
Hisamatsu the "ego" was lacking. Hisamatsu, to be sure, uttered such star-
tling statements as "I do not die" and "I have no defilements ( bonno JJH~ )"
(HrsAMATSU and YAGI 1980, pp. 4-7). On the other hand he also said, "As I
am so old I may die at any moment. When I am dead, please make conver-
sation with me who am in you" (HrsAMATSU and YAGI 1980, p. 257). These
words clarify what Hisamatsu mean t. Humans are not mere egos; the Self can
manifest itself in and to the ego, so that Self and ego, being two, are one (the
oneness ofactivity). This means the "death and resurrection" ofthe ego. The
person in and to whom this has taken place is enlightened; he is no longer a
mere ego but is aware that his subjectivity is Self/ego (abb.: S/e). In an
attempt to explain this I would like to use a simile. The relation between the
Self and the ego is something like that between the captain and the steers-
man; the body can then be compared to the hull ofthe ship. The captain also
represents the shipping company. (The Self, as the unity of the human and
the divine-transcendent, represents the transcendent).
Different levels of religious language may be used even by the same per-
son. The nonreligious e o (abb.: m.e. [mere ego]) uses ordinary language.
~ enlightened person (S/e) spea s o~religio~ mat~rs ~ing _re.,--I-__
gious language. In some cases of S/e the Self is maximized and the ego min-
imized (abb.: S; the pure S says nothing for it is speechless); the words of
73

YAGI
such individuals are hardly comprehensible in everyday terms, as was the case
with Hisamatsu. There is also the case in which the ego of S/e is maximized
and the Self minimized (abb.: e). While one can say that as S such a person
is free from sin, as e the same person can have a radical awareness of sinful-
ness. The difference relates to the level on which one stands: different levels
have different perspectives. Thus Jesus, as e, says "Why do you call me good1
No one is good except God alone," and as S tells a young man to sell all his
property, give it to the poor, and follow him (Mk 10:18-21). A tax collector
confesses his sinfulness as e (notas m.e.-it is impossible for m.e. to admit sin-
fulness) and Jesus as S declares the tax collector to be justified by God.
Jesus also teaches, "Love your enemy" (Mat 5:44). M.e. !oves its friends
and hates its enemies. Or rather, it !oves its own m.e. first, then !oves other
humans if they are friends and hates them if they are enemies. It is entirely
impossible for m.e. to love an enemy. S, on the other hand, has no enemy at
all. To S, every human being encountered is the neighbor whom S !oves.
"The Good Samaritan" (Lk 1 0:30-37) is an example of such an S. TherefÓre
the command to love one's enemy is meaningful only for S/e. For, although
S/e finds it natural to love his or her neighbor, the command is necessary
because S/e tends always to become m.e.
Ethics is the level of behavioral regulation proper to all egos, including
mere egos. Thus the command of Jesus to love one's enemy is not ethics at
all, but an injunction directed to S/e (though it m ay be called an expression
of"religious ethics," as long as this does not cause one to regard itas a "high-
er" standard for all egos to follow). "Religious ethics" describes the normal
behavior of S/e (indicative ); in that it is normal it is at the same time the stan-
dard, the "ought" (imperative), as S/e is always inclined to become m.e.
Mosaic Law, the so-called Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17, Deut. 5:6-
22), is written not in the imperative but in the indicative imperfect. This
means-and it is often interpreted by Old Testament scholars in this way ·
(SEKJNE 1979, pp. 53-54)-that it describes the conduct of humans stand-
ing in the right relation to God (indicative). But this standard became a
norm, law, or commandment (imperative), as human beings are apt to go
astray. If it had remained simply the description of human conduct written in
the indicative mood of descriptive language, Judaism would have been criti-
cized as a religion lacking ethics.
When Buddhists speak as S they describe mainly the normal state of
humanity (indicative). They speak of, for example, the mutual interpenetra-
74
LANGUAGE ANO THE KYOTO SCHOOL
tion of all things, including humans. In this case human society is perfectly
integrated, with neither split nor oppression in it. To S all of reality is the
world of activated and realized Buddha-nature. In contrast, Christians or
Westerners in general are wont to speak as e, not to sayas m.e. Though Paul
(as S) could refer to the Church as the Body of Christ, an ideally integrated
communio sanctorum in which each Christian has a status and role that the
individual Christian fulfills of his/her own accord, Christians know that this
is not the case in reality. In human society, including Christian churches,
there are many who neglect, oppress, or take advantage of others. The
Church as the Body of Christ is the invisible reality that exists in Heaven; the
empírica! churches remain only its shadow. That means that to the Christian
the "normal" state is the standard, which "ought" to be realized. Ethics is
therefore indispensable, as there is precious little mutual interpenetratedness
that is realized in our human world. Again, it is something that ought to be
realized. "Thou shalt !ove thy neighbor" is for them the Christian ethic
(imperative).
While Jodo Buddhists speak, as Christians do, as S/e, which is aware that
it is not free from m.e., Zen Buddhists describe what S/e, or rather S, looks
like and what it does of its own accord (not in obedience to sorne authority
such as the divine order). To recall the word of Hisamatsu cited above, the
enlightened "work and fly freely about practicing merey." This is the expres-
sion of the very nature of S. Merey is what it wills, what it wants heartily, free
from every "ought" and from all compromise with e or m.e. This is the testi-
mony of S that reveals the very nature of humanity.
But it is necessary for the Kyoto school too to avoid the misunderstanding
that it lacks ethics. It is necessary for the school to show that S, as the no~
mal state ofhumani · ative is at the same time the norm, the "ought,"
and therefore the "ethics" (imperative) for all es that still participate in m. e.
For the sake of communication it should share the standpoint of ordmary
humans, remaining aware that it can share the state of m.e. at any moment
without losing sight of S. The Kyoto school should show that the mutual
interpenetration of persons (indicative) is nevertheless the state that "ought"
to be realized (imperative), not the state that realizes itself of itself in our
society. This would be nothing other than the ethics of the Kyoto school of
philosophy.
75
 YAGI

References cited
HISAMATSU Shin'ichi 'l\ .fí.~J1{- Nishitani Revisited
1949 Mushinron ~t$~~. Hisamatsu Shin "ichi chosakushu 'l\.fí.~Jl;- ~{'F~
[Hisamatsu Shin'ichi's collected works] 2:53-93. Kyoto: Hozokan.
1958 FAS ni tsuite FAS 1: -:Jlt'""C. Hisamatsu Shin )ichi chosakushu 3:457-72. JAN VAN BRAGT
Kyoto: Hozokan.
1963 Gendai no kadai to FAS Zen .lJi ft 0)8tJ11i e FAS fljí. Hisamatsu Shin Jichi
chosakushu 3:473-91. Kyoto: Hozokan .
HISAMATSU Shin'ichi and YAGI Seiichi
1980 Kaku no shukyo j[O)*~ [Religion of enlightenment]. Tokyo: Shun- HE "REVISITING" REFERRED to in my title is meant to carry a double
jüsha.
NISHIDA Kitar6 iZ!l!B~~_e~
T meaning. One, that of going back, possibly for the last time, to a place
one had lived for quite sorne time in order to come to a conclusion about the
1911 Zen no kenkyu §O)JiJf~. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. meaning it really had in one's life. Two, that of going back to reexplore a
1930 Ippansha no jikakuteki taikei -~~~O)§ :J[8{]f.t;f~. Reprinted as Nishida place one thought one knew well but about which one has heard others say
Kitaro zenshu iZ!i"IB~~_e~~~ [The complete works ofNishida Kitaro] things one was completely unaware of. My paper will thus have two parts. In
S. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. part 1 I shall try to define my position toward that part of the thought of
1946 Basho no ronri to shükyoteki sekaikan t~pJTO)~~.f..ll!. c*~á{]tltW.W . Nishitani Keiji with which I have had a long acquaintance, basically that of
Nishida Kitaro zenshu 11:412-68. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten . Shukyo to wa nanika * t!<cl.t{iiJi.P [What is religion?] (NrSHITANI 1961). 1 In
NISHITANI Keiji iZ!li:i-§ ié¡ part 2 I shall reflect on the thought of the la ter Nishitani, of which I knew
1987a Shukyo to wa nani ka *rxcl.t~ l:i.p [What is religion?]. Nishitani very little until recently. The question may be whether in its duality the paper
Keiji chosakushu iZ!li:i-§ié¡~{'¡:j(if [Nishitani Keiji's collected works] still forros a kind of unity.
10. Tokyo: Sobunsha.
1987b Kami to zettai mu 1$c~-@N~. Nishitani Keiji chosakushu 7. Tokyo:
Sobunsha. The Early Nishitani and the Philosophy of Sunyata
SEKINE Masao l!kl.f.li!IEt{t
On review, my acquaintance with Nishitani's philosophy has not been a very
1979Kodai Isuraeru no shisoka ó {t1 7.. 7..I.Jv0),\l;l,~* [Thinkers of ancient satisf)ring one. Probably because of my Christian sensibilities and Western
Israel]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
background, I have never really felt at home in it, and I have never been sure
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig
that I understood it sufficiently to define my own position towards it. I always
1953 [1958] Philosophische Untersuchungen. Basel: Blackwell. · regarded it as soaring high in the sky and never coming to roost near where
YAGI Seiichi J\ :~Max-
I live. I might possibly say that, for thirty-one years now (ever since the time
1995
Shukyo to gengo-Shukyo no gengo *t!<c §ü~-*t!<O)§)¡lf [Religion I first read Shükyo to wa nanika and wrote down my impressions in a long
and language: Language of religion]. Tokyo: Nippon Kirisuto Kyo- review article [VAN BRAGT 1962 ]), I have been living with it as with a koan.
dan Shuppankyoku.
When pressed by Western scholars to make my own position clear, I have
always played a dilatory game . But now I feel that time is running out on me,
and that the moment has come, if not to go to the Master with my provi-

1
Translated as Religion and Nothingness by Jan Van Bragt ( NISHITANI 1982 ).

76
77
 VAN BRAGT
sional solution of the koan, at least to pinpoint, to the best of my ability and
for m y own peace of mind, where the sore spots and bottlenecks have been
lying all the time. Let me borrow the words of another Western scholar who
also struggled with Nishitani's thought to express why I want to bother you
with these difficulties of mine: "I am hopeful that, by identif)ring where my
unclarity and uncertainty lie, sorne of these here, who are more deeply
acquainted with Nishitani's thought than I am, will be able to set me
straight" (LITTLE 1989, p. 181).
Before proceeding further, however, a few remarks may be in order. First
of all, my interest in Nishitani's thought has never been a purely philosophi-
cal one. In all these years my real concern has always been the compatibility
ofEastern and Western ways ofthinking and, within that framework, the pos-
sibility of a meeting of minds between Christianity and Buddhism. Secondly,
I dare say that, in this connection, I have always held a "favorable prejudice"
towards Nishitani's philasophy since it appeared to be genuinely religiously
inspired and to promise an intima te view into the way the other half of the
world thinks, and thus to offer the Christian theological tradition basic coun-
terbalances to its traditional, culturally limited, categories. Thirdly, there is,
of course, the question as to why it would be worth anybody's while to listen
to my personal difficulties with Nishitani's philosophy. Being fully convinced
that a considerable part of such difficulty is due to m y lack of understanding,
I cannot and do not pretend that my reservations faithfully reflect the real
points of divergence between Western and Eastern ways ofthinking, a prob-
lem with which the international community must come to grips now and in
the future. Still, there is the possibility that my difficulties may reveal, here
and there, certain aspects of this divergence. Moreover, experience tells me
that most of my problems are shared by a great number of other run-of-the-
mill Western minds and, to that extent, may be worth considering by those
who want to introduce the thought of the Kyoto school ( and maybe also of
Buddhism) to the Western world.
So, why has there always remained a "glass wall," as it were, between the
beautiful religious ideal painted by Nishitani Keiji in a majestic sweep of nega-
tion and my own everyday reality (including my religious needs) and that of
human society with its many contradictory components? My search for the
reasons may at times appear to be a self-confident criticism ofNishitani's phi-
losophy (making Nishitani alone responsible for the existence of the wall)
but, in truth, my only desire is to see the wall disappear.
78
NISHITANI REVISITED
Writing about his early years as a philosopher in "Watakushi no tetsu-
gakuteki hossokuten" fLO)tif~8996-,@,q [My philosophical starting point],
Nishitani commented, "It then seemed to me that, in the experiences of the
people called 'mystics,' there appears a peak wherein religion and philosophy
interpenetrate and reach unity" (NKC 20:194). It is safe to say, I believe, that
this unity always remained Nishitani's ideal. However, he tried to realize it
not in mysticism but in philosophy, in a philosophy that embraces religion
and can rightly be called an "innerly religious" philosophy. I, too, have
always felt that "philosophy only" cannot deliver what the human kokoro {,
(heart and mind together) is looking for. Philosophy, I feel, must be "open"
to religion (which does not necessarily follow the laws of philosophical rea-
son), just as religion must expose itself ever anew to the light of philosophi-
cal reason. But can the respective natures of both partners be safeguarded
when one speaks of a "unity" of religion and philosophy?
It has always seemed to me that, in Nishitani as well as in Tanabe, the
nature of philosophy is somehow being done violence to by an appeal to a
religious experience not obtainable or recoverable by philosophical methods.
In other words, Nishitani seems to have wanted at work in his philosophy a
prajñii that he nevertheless defines as "Great Wisdom, having the meaning of
a transcendence of all ontology and epistemology" (NKC 14: 50), oras "a
cognition that originares at the far side of the intellect" (NKC 16: 189). In
this connection, the unmediated turnabout of absolute negation into
absolute affirmation, so important in Nishitani's philosophy, has always
seemed to me philosophically unwarranted, albeit religiously acceptable.
Asto the integrity of the religious aspect, it was the study of Hegel's phi-
losophy that originally alerted me to the danger inherent in an overly intimare
relationship of religion with philosophy. In subsequent years this feeling has
been strengthened by seeing the history of Buddhism reduced to a logical
development of metaphysical and epistemological ideas. Attracted though I
was by the affinity with philosophy shown by Buddhism (as compared to
Christianity), I have never been able to believe that such was the "real" his-
tory of the Buddhist religion.
With regard to the relationship between religion and philosophy in Nishi
tani, my misgivings have taken an additional form. Nishitani clearly incorpo-
rares in his philosophy many insights from Mahayana Buddhist thought. But
do not these insights necessarily change in nature by being thus transposed?
Do not these "eminently pragmatic" insights become "ontologized" in the
79
 VAN BRAGT
process? Is emptiness as the deconstruction of the false views that lead to
attachment and suffering identical with emptiness as the first principie of
reality?
In addition, I must admit that, accustomed as I am to the luxurious flora
and fauna of Catholicism, I have never been able to feel at home in the stark
and disembodied religion that Nishitani advocates. I once expressed this
unease in the following words:
I cannot help experiencing the picture of religion which Nishitani ...
paints as "uncanny:" a religion ofthe hero, the superman; a religion
that uproots one and sets one on the way, but in no sense becomes
a home; a religion where the "form is emptiness" is pushed to its
extreme without any visible return to "emptiness is form"; a reli-
gion of "barren heights," a moonscape. (VAN BRAGT 1992, p. 35)
It could first be remarked that in Nishitani's picture of religion one scarcely
finds anything of what scholars of religion speak of when they treat their sub-
ject: the play of the imagination, bodily observances, rituals, religious com-
munity, "strong" places and times, and so on. But what I most sorely miss as
a Christian is the role of the emotions, especially the "positive" ones: jubila-
tion and thanksgiving, desire and !ove for God. The feeling has always
remained with me that Nishitani tends to reduce all religion toa contempla-
tive peak experience. By its very nature or structure, Nishitani's religion
appears to relegate al! other religious elements at best to the level of distrac-
tions. But does not Nishitani thereby forget about the path or ladder that
leads up to the peak?
On severa! earlier occasions I have aired my difficulties with ( or lack of
understanding of) the notion of emptiness, or at least with the way it tends
to be used. This difficulty hampers my understanding not only of Kyoto phi-
losophy but also of much Buddhist thought. If I la y m y problem befare you
it is really in the hope that you will "help m y unbelief." So let me try to for-
mulate it as succinctly as possible.
I do not understand how emptiness, in al! the negativity of its form and
function, can be considered to comprise in itself a perfect synthesis of negation
and affirmation, of nothingness and being. It seems to me that emptiness is
often presented as (simultaneously) a point of departure or point of arrival. I
am unable to view it as either; I can only see it as an eminently necessary and
salutary negative m ove, starting from an original immediate ( one-sided)
80
NISHITANI REVISITED
affirmation and, in "combination" with this initial affirmation, leading to the
right affirmation of myo)u ~j;;ff, wondrous being. One will object here, I
guess, that this is exactly how emptiness is always presented, but I cannot
help feeling that the negative sweep of emptiness is often conflated with the
felicitous result and made solely responsible for it. To put my difficulty in a
rather lapidary forro: the notion of an actively merciful, "nourishing" empti-
ness is beyond me.
Nishitani Keiji has, indeed, convinced me-something for which I will be
forever in his debt-that emptiness has a capital role to play in philosophy
and, more still, in religion. He made me see that consciousness and freedom
are unthinkable without it; that only emptiness can ensure the newness needed
for history and the "absoluteness" of the individual beyond genus and
species; and that the central mysteries of Christianity-creation, the forgive
ness of sins, death-resurrection, and incarnation with its "kenosis"-cry out
for it as an interpretative category. I am thus convinced that Nishitani's
thought could be enormously salutary for Christian theology. However, a
"solo performance" of emptiness is less than convincing forme. Nishitani has
taught me to appreciate emptiness as a principie that breaks through the
"totality" of world and history, but I cannot accept it insofar as it becomes,
or is presented as, itself the totality.
Nishitani's thought (along with Kyoto-school philosophy in general and,
indeed, the Buddhist Mahayana thought it draws from) is susceptible to the
criticism that it is unable to come clown again to concrete, everyday reality
(especial! y social reality ), and to endow it with sufficient intrinsic val u e to
motivate serious commitment to it, say in the struggle for social justice. With
Mahayana Buddhism this has been adequately pointed out (by Nishitani him-
self, to begin with), as it has with Kyoto-school philosophy, so I think it is
unnecessary forme to further belabor the point. Could it be that the contra-
dictions of human life, once spiritually transcended in the wisdom of empti-
ness, find it hard to resume their "rightful" status?
Old Mahayana !ore has it that for Wisdom there is no other over against
the self, but for Merey the other is eminently real; that, for the bodhisattva
(the being who reconciles in himselfWisdom and Merey), Merey is as deter-
mining of reality as Wisdom. Could the problem lie in the (putative) fact that,
the ideal figure of the bodhisattva notwithstanding, Buddhist (and Kyoto
philosophy) theory does not give Merey egua! status with Wisdom but tends
to reduce it to Wisdom, often by the formula "Merey is 'self and other not
81
 VAN BRAGT
two"' (jita funi § 1m::f= )? In other words, that in the dilemma of the
bodhisattva, true reality is put on the side ofWisdom rather than on that of
Merey?
The practica! applicability of Nishitani's philosophy has been put into
question, for instan ce, in connection with the matter of human rights. In the
article cited at the beginning of this paper, David Little-an author actively
engaged in the internacional struggle for human rights-asks himself how the
idea ofhuman rights could be based on Nishitani's ideal view ofhuman rela-
tions in emptiness: "What exactly would such a notion of human rights look
like? (What articles would the new declaration of human rights include? Why
would they be there?)" (LITILE 1989, p. 186). The significant thing here
may be that Nishitani's thought seldom goes in the direction of answering
such concrete ethical questions. But, if I may be allowed a little excursus, I
would like to use this occasion to put before you a particular baffiement of
mine: Why is it exactly that, whenever he mentions human rights, Nishitani
does not hide his aversion for the very concept? For example, at the end of
Shukyó to wa nanika Nishitani touches on human rights in a way that seems
to set the tone for all further thoughts on them:
True equality is not simply a matter of human rights and the own-
ership of property. Such equality concerns man as the subject of
desires and rights and comes clown, in the final analysis, to the self-
centered mode of being of man himself. It has yet to depart funda-
mentally from the principie of self-love. (NISHITANI 1982, p. 285)
In other texts, human rights are further associated with the ego pushing itself
on things (instead ofletting things cometo affirm the self) and with will, law,
and power (instead of naturalness). It is also said that a stress on human rights
appears in a society where love has disappeared (NKC 17:83-84). To quote
one more text:
Christianity ... stands on the basis of law. It is based on the stand-
point of will. It conceives of the relationship of God and human
beings as of a matter ofwill. When religion is then gradually secu-
larized, this gives rise to the human idea of basic human rights.
(NKC 18:191)2
2
Further references to the question of human rights can be found, for instance, in NKC
17:21-26,84-85,201,270-71, 289; and 20:81-82.
82
NISHITANI REVISITED
In a word, human rights are put squarely in the camp of the self-centered
ego. I must confess that I find this hard to understand, since I have always
spontaneously felt them to be a matter, not of the rights of one's own ego,
but of the "other" ego (Thou).
Where does this difference originate? Could it be that Nishitani basically
sees the I-Thou relationship as a symmetrical one? In that case, of course,
every promotion of the Thou becomes at the same time a promotion of the
I, and true love demands the negation ofthe Thou (tako no muga1tf1.2.0)~~)
as well as of the I (jiko no muga § C'. O)~~). This is clearly suggested by the
above-mentioned formula "love is jita funi"; this concept is not expressed as
such by Nishitani, I believe, but can be detected in sorne of Nishitani's for-
mulations, such as, "The self itself returns to its own home-ground by killing
every 'other' and, consequently, killing itself'' (NISHITANI 1982, p. 263); or
again, "To be attested to by all things means to drop the body and mind of
one's own self as well as of the other self'' (NKC 17:36). I submit that the
symmetry of I and Thou is a very misleading thing. There can be no doubt
about the necessity and salutariness ofthe negation-relativization ofthe I, but
the question whether the negation of the Thou, in whatever form or phase,
can be religiously salutary demands at least a special investigation.
I agree, of course, with Nishitani that human rights are not the final word
in human relationships and that love goes beyond the level of rights of self
and other. But such love always presupposes the existence of rights, like true
peace implies justice.
Finally, I want to mention an uneasiness that I have never been able to
overcome in my contact with Mahayana theory and with the thought of the
Kyoto school, and that may be the real root of all my difficulties. Namely, I
always get the impression that in this way of thinking emptiness tends to
claim absolute (ontological and axiological) priority over form, the one over
the many, identity over difference and, indeed, wisdom over love. There
seems to be at work therein the presupposition "that the final ideal, the peak
of intellectual, religious, and mystical perfection (all in one) is 'absolute
unity,' wherein all division, duality, multiplicity, relation, and interaction
3
have been perfectly and finally overcome."
I cannot really develop this theme here but, from the standpoint of m y two
3 I borrow this phrase here from MOMMAERS and VAN BRAGT 1995, where I treat this differ-
ence in basic presupposition between Buddhism and Christianiry more extensively (pp. 127-33,
186-96).
83
 VAN BRAGT
basic concerns, I want to make two points. For the East-West dialogue it may
be important to remark that, to a Westerner, the superiority of undifferenti-
ated oneness or unity does not necessarily appear as a self-evident truth that
can serve as a basis of argument. This shows up, rather paradigmatically, in a
reaction to Abe Masao's position by the (former) Chicago theologian Lang-
don Gilkey:
Finally, a Westerner, whether Christian or humanist, cannot help
but wonder why for Abe any hint of "dualism" is taken for granted
as representing an objectively fatal problem for any viewpoint, how-
ever different from his own .... The assumption that duality in the
sense of ultimate structural distinctions is universally a fault repre-
sents an aspect or implication of the Buddhist viewpoint itself and
notan argument for that viewpoint. (GILKEY 1986, pp. 120-22)
And for the meeting of Christianity and Buddhism it must be pointed out
that the Christian ideal of unity appears to be a "differentiated, complex, and
transformative process" of unity; not a unity of total presence, but a unity
that is always open to further enrichment by the other (and, finally, the Other).
We appear to be faced, indeed, with a basic problem: "What is to be considered
as final Reality: Being that finally reduces everything to the same, or Love that
does not cease producing difference?" (MOMMAERS 1991, p. 90, note 7).
The Later Nishitani and ccrranscendence in the Earth))
The preparation of this paper has been an occasion to renew my far from
complete acquaintance with the later thought4 of Nishitani Keiji. I never
found occasion to study this later thought thoroughly, so that my present
comments on it may seem rather presumptuous (evento me). But one thing
that has long intrigued me about it was the question of whether this later
thought shows any notable change or evolution over against the earlier
"Nishitanean system." It is precisely this question that I would now like to
put befare you.
In fact, this question was addressed in last year's ( 1997) Kyoto Zen Sym-
posium by Hase Sh6t6, and my status questionis is totally based on Hase's
enlightening paper. I had no access, however, to a transcript of the ensuing
4
Meaning, roughly, Nishitani's thought after the publication in book form of his magnum
opus, Shukyo to JVa nanika.
84
NrsHITANI REvrsrTED
discussion, which may have gone very deep into the question, but I submit
that the question is important enough to merit further consideration. My
ueatment of the question will add to Hase's substantial insights only sorne
random, and probably marginal, reflections . Hase formulated his conclusion
as follows:
In the thought of Nishitani's later years there appears an element
that differs from his thought in the early and middle "nihilistic"
periods. Here, alongside emptiness, one finds another major pat-
tern oftranscendence-namely, "transcendence in the earth" (do ni
okeru choetsu ±1: .Bit J.>ímit!l1. ), a transcendence finding form in what
he called the Buddha Realm (Bukkokudo 1LOO±), the Pure Land
Uodo ~±), and also the Kingdom ofGod. (HASE 1997, p. 66)
The first thing this reminds me of is the distinction, found in the science of
religion, between "primitive" ( or tribal) religions and world (or historical)
religions. Tribal religions can be called "religions of the earth": the sacred is
located in the primal ingredients of human existence on earth-blood and
soil (family and Heimat)-and is thought to function there to give those
ingredients reality (in the "earthy" sense of stability and reliability). The
world religions, on the other hand, might be characterized as "religions of
the sky ," in that they stress transcendence of the things of the earth and point
upward and inward. There can be no doubt that this "sky direction" endows
them with an added spiritual depth and potency, but the question is whether
they can do without the "earth direction." It would appear that they cannot
truly take root in the human heart without incorporating somehow the
"earthiness" of the original, primitive religions.
Incidentally, I have always considered Buddhism to be a more typical or
radical world religion than Christianity, because in it (at least originally) the
transcendence ofblood (in the practice of shukke tl:'.*, "home-leaving") and
soil (in the "homeless" lifestyle) appears in a more central and clear-cut form.
Christianity m ay have inherited sorne of the earthiness of its matrix, Judaism,
that world religion which never cut the umbilical cord with its past as a tribal
religion. It may be significant that in the Hebrew scriptures we encounter
passages such as the following:
Faithfulness will spring up from the earth, and righteousness will
look down from the sky. (Psalm 85:11)
85
 VAN BRAGT
Shower, O heavens, from above, and Jet the skies rain clown right-
eousness; let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth, and Jet
it cause righteousness to spring up also; I the Lord have created it.
(Isaiah 15:8)
To me as a Christian it is significant that Hase seeks in the later philoso-
phy ofNishitani a foundation for the Jodo Shinshii concept ofthe Pure Land
(HAsE 1997, p. 68 ), because I have always felt that Shinshii was similar to
Christianity in its divergence from the younger Nishitani's idea of religion.
Indeed, if it can be said that both the early and the late Nishitani regard the
Pure Land concept and the Christian myth to be upaya ( though this is some-
thing that, to my knowledge, he never says explicitly), this upiiya nevertheless
takes on a new meaning in the late Nishitani. Whereas before it had simply
been an "expedient" means (basically pure imagination, without intrinsic
truth), it now becomes an upiiya founded in human existence as body and in
the imagination as revealer of truth; an upiiya possessing all the dignity of
Buddhist "post-enlightenment Wisdom" and the "reality of Merey."
As to the dual symbolism of sky and earth (a symbolism that plays a big
role in the later Nishitani), it seems tome that the Shinshii thinker and older
contemporary of Nishitani, Soga Ryojin ~:fli;.;.i*, was also inspired by it
when he asserted that the real savior we need is not "the Eterna] Tathagata
of Unhindered Light" but the "earthly" Dharmakara Bodhisattva.
What is truly demanded by actual, present reality is not light in the
sky, but the vessel of the Vow on the ocean of real human life.
While all ofthe world's idealistic religions are "religions ofheaven,"
our religion of salvation by Dharmakara Bodhisattva has the dis-
tinction ofbeing the only "religion ofthe earth." (SOGA 1970, pp.
410-11, 412)'
And, I think, basically in the same vein:
The Tathagata [Amida Jis unhindered light shining in the ten direc-
tions. Still, when I enter deeply into his breast, I see infinite dark-
ness .... I see the Tathagata as a limitless candle, but ... the core of
that light is limitless darkness. This darkness is the Original Vow of
5
A related idea is ro be found on page 288 of the same volume: "The conscious self is only a
wave on a great ocean. M y rotality Ji es in the unconscious. The faith of Other- Power has listened
to the clamor of the unconscious self, adroitly brought it out, and exposed it ro consciousness."
86
NISHITANI REVISITED
Great Merey, [Amida ]'s religious observance. If we consider Wisdom
to belight, then Merey is darkness .... The Tathagata's darkness is
truly the moving power behind his Wisdom. (SOGA 1970, pp.
317-18)
The last question I want to associate with our present problem is that of
globalization and the influence it will have on us human beings, especially our
youth. A discussion of this problem I heard the other day suggested to me
that globalization may reveal in a new way the importance to us of body and
earth. Theoretically speaking, globalization can only be regarded as a great
gain: it frees human relations from the bonds of time and place; it allows us
to transcend the bodily ties of family and neighborhood that we find our-
selves in as givens at the time of our birth. It thus seems to go in the same
direction as the transcendence ofblood and soil found in the world religions.
By means of the Internet, for example, we can now freely choose, world-
wide, the people we want to associate with-people with the same interests
and projects. However, a serious question remains: presupposing that per-
sonal relationships are essential for the identity of the self, will such freely
eh osen relationships suffice to build and uphold the identity ( "reality") of the
person, or does not human identity rather demand roots in the earth, in
"bonded" relationships that always have an "over against?" Does it not
require a synthesis of natural necessity and freedom, of onozukara and
mizukara (cf. NKC 24:309)? Does it not involve what Nishitani once called
"to be made to live from the back" (NKC 25:18)? It could be said that Nishi-
tani himself struggled with this problem when he asked what it meant to be
a Japanese, to have one's identity in the soil ofJapan (NKC 25:18-19).
This may be the moment to say simply that I feel more affinity with Nishi-
tani's la ter view of religion-a view that incorpora tes the earthy elements and
"comes clown from the peak to the foothills"-than with his earlier religious
system. Before analyzing the difference, however, I want to ask the question
of exactly what role emptiness plays in this new view of religion. Can we really
speak of "two patterns of transcendence," and, if so, what is the relationship
between the two?
There may be sorne ambiguity left on this point in Hase's paper. On the one
hand, Hase seems to suggest that a new dynamics of transcendence, different
from that of emptiness and in a sense replacing it, comes to the fore in the
later Nishitani. "In his later years, Nishitani turned from the problem of
emptiness to the question of nature and the soil" (HAsE 1997, p. 75 [my italics ]).
87
 VAN BRAGT
But, on the other hand, it looks as if the same dynamics of emptiness are stilJ
at work in the later view, only this time a somewhat differently conceived
emptiness, an emptiness "profoundJy related to the problem of the imagina-
tion" rather than to nihilism (HASE 1997, p . 66); an emptiness not remain-
ing in the sky but descending, as the world of images, into body and eanh;
an emptiness not simpJy of the intellect, but an "emptiness within sen timen t."
The problem might possibly be reformulated in the folJowing way: Can we
stilJ characterize the religion of the later Nishitani as a "religion of the sky,"
or does the confluence of sky and earth that we now witness oblige us to loo k
for a third term that no longer suggests an ascendancy of the sky over the
earth? To reformulate again, for the sake of argument: Is Ueda Shizuteru
justified in characterizing this new religiosity as "the smelJ of the sky?" I find
an indication that maybe Nishitani himself would have hesitated to use that
expression, in a text in which he compares seeing the sky and tasting rice:
These two experiences are slightly different. Tasting is a matter of
the whole body, something that happens in the body. Sight can be
said to be a higher sense than taste, but one that, as sense, is not
directly connected with the body. Touch and taste, on the other
hand, happen in direct connection with the body. (NKC 24:133)
Be this as it may, it seems important to me to clarif)r, if possible, the rela-
tionship between the two modes of transcendence, not onJy in the religion of
the later Nishitani but also in religion in general. If, as I think, there is in the
later Nishitani a greater possibility of a real meeting between a religion that
starts from emptiness and religions that, like Christianity and Jodo Shinshü,
start from the opposite ("being") pole, the question remains what role empti-
ness does and must play in Christianity, in a syzygy with its earthy elements.
Presupposing that Hase's description of the evolution in the thought of
the later Nishitani is basicalJy correcr, there may stilJ be room to ask once
more, in general: What exactly happened with the later Nishitani? What
prompted him to move to a (greater) recognition of "transcendence in the
earth?" And how, and where, does this change manifest itself apart from the
direct treatment of Pure Land and Kingdom of God?
If, among the papers that Nishitani left behind at his death, no relevant
personal note is found, we shalJ probably never know what lay at the basis of
this change of direction in his thought. As it is now, we can only guess, and
guessing is what I am going to do for a moment.
88
NISHITANI REVISITED
After the appearance of Shükyó to wa nanika, Nishitani may have felt that
a milestone in his philosophical career had been reached-that he was now in
possession of a system of religious philosophy that was consistent and com-
prehensible (at least for an audience of Japanese intellectuals with a basic
knowledge ofBuddhism6 ). He could now, in a sense, "forget" the system and
look at things anew from a certain distance. Did the feeling then gradually
arise that he had not really been able, in his system, to give Jodo Shinshü and
Christianity the place and legitimacy they had in his "feelings"? Did earlier
criticisms of his system now cometo show themselves in a new, more cogent
tight? Or was there sorne decisive experience in his life that made him see that
there was more in reality (specifically religion) than in his philosophy?
We-or, at least, I-do not know, but I must say that I am especially struck
by the frequency and the force with which he now stresses the necessity for a
strictly individual, very priva te, conscience relating to the individual self and
to human relations. And it could be that he betrayed much ofwhat bothered
him and drove him on when he said, "We must grasp the meaning of the
Buddha and of Buddhism anew through the problem of conscience" (NKC
17:287). (Incidentally, reliable sources have it that Nishitani once jokingly said
to his friend, Muto Kazuo, "You Christians have responsibility, because you
have a self; I have no responsibility, because I am muga -. ~, [non-self].")
How then can we characterize the evolution of Nishitani's later thought?
I have been calling it a "change of direction," but is that not too strong a
term? Would a "change of accent" be more accurate? Can we speak of a
change in his way of philosophizing? I do not think so, although it can be
said that he never presented his new insights in a systematic way/ and possi-
bly did not feel pressed any longer to do so.
And where, and how, does the change manifest itself? Can we say that the
later Nishitani pays attention to phenomena, or takes up problems, that he
had tended to neglect in his earlier period(s)? In a certain sense we might be
entitled to say so--that, for example, the many religious "forms" had not
really found a place in his system. I think it might be more accurate to say
that, in his la ter years, Nishitani devoted special attention to aspects of reality
he had not accorded due weight to in his earlier system. But I am admittedly
6
I add this restriction because Nishitani often wanted to add some further explanatio n to the
English translation , worrying that Westerners would no t get his point.
7
The nearest he came to this is possibly thc essay singled out by Hase, "Kü to soku" ~c l!ll
[Sunyata and nonduality] (HASE 1997, p. 69).
89

VAN BRAGT
vulnerable to the objection that these aspects of reality (mostly those aspects
I call "positive") are in fact fully there in his earlier thought, and it is just that
I do not recognize them owing to my lack of understanding of Nishitani's
system.
This possibility is, indeed, real enough. Still, I do not think that this objec-
tion does away with the real question. To put things a bit drastically, I find
in the later Nishitani such a new and strong stress on these "positive" ele-
ments that I cannot but conclude that he himself realized that, although
these aspects may have been logically present in the soku of negation and
affirmation of his earlier system, it was not right to cover them with such a
thick layer of (what at first sight appears as pure) negativity that they could
not truly appear in their own "self-being" and could not be recognized as
such by the ordinary reader. I ha ve the impression that Nishitani himself sug-
gests something of the kind when he says of Buddhism, "Buddhism is
extremely other-worldly .... On this point, one has the impression that this
[view and attitude] is somehow insufficient to think human life through in a
radical way" (NKC 17:230-31).
It is mainly in the aforementioned stress on conscience that the "raw"
individual person steps out from under the cover of his or her circuminses-
sional interpenetration with all others. Conscience appears now as that part
of the self that is not accessible to others ("a closed chamber where others
cannot look into"), known only to the individual self (though "open to
heaven"); the place of a direct relationship with oneself, of a self-identity,
permanence, and independence of the self, needed for its trustworthiness,
and thus constituting the basis of all personal relations. 8 In this privacy and
hiddenness, in this "each being absolutely alone" aspect of the self, the body
plays a big role: "Having a body means showing oneself to others as con-
taining something hidden" (NKC 17:196). In this connection it is interest-
ing to note that, after stressing that "there is something permanent in the
human person," Nishitani interprets this something as "Buddha nature" and
says, "Without Buddha nature, true human relations do not come to be"
(NKC 17:202-203). 9 It may also be noteworthy that Nishitani finds it nec-
essary to have recourse to the term "substance" at this point, and speaks of
"substancial (jittaiteki '#d{;-.89) relations" among persons (NKC 17:219).
8 Sce, for example, 17:45ff, 55-56,66-67, 196,202-203, 205fT, 249-50, 256-58; 25: 22.
9 I am reminded here ofHakamaya Noriaki's contention that Buddha nature does not fit emptiness.
90
NISHITANI REVISITED
Parallel with the independence of the self, the irreducibility of the Thou
(the other self) steps to the fore in a much stronger way than before. In
Shükyó to wa nanika I and Thou are duly recognized as "absolutely two" on
the level of personhood, but the overall thrust goes to the more original and
authentic personal-sive-impersonallevel where the two are nondual, and it is
on this level that the real meeting between the two takes place. "On the field
of fünyatá, Dasein breaks clown the total self-enclosure of avidyá and goes
back to its original Form of the non-duality of self and other" (NISHITANI
10
1982, p. 265).
Moreover, the relationship of I and Thou tends to be seen as a symmetrical
one. "On the field of emptiness, there is no difference between self-directedness
and other-directedness" (NrSHITANI 1982, p. 262). In the later years, I find
no trace anymore of the priority of the underlying unity of I and Thou,
although the emptiness moment is still there, of course, as a structural ele-
ment. Nishitani now stresses that what is needed is an independent "subjec-
tivity that has at the same time a non-selfnature (a 'non-ego-like subjectivity')"
1
(NKC 17:193r
The relationship of self and other is one wherein both support one
another at the basic level of being and being. This is truly possible
only when each is absolutely independent. (NKC 17:268)
A true meeting with a person is one in which the other really
appears to the selfas other. (NKC 17:12)
The self becomes truly the self in making the other into an other.
(NKC 24:93)
And the symmetry of I and Thou appears to be lost. They do not
grow together or diminish together; on the contrary, the more the
Thou gains in reality the more the I diminishes: "The real non-self
way of being is the opening of a place in which the other is accepted
in its reality" (NKC 17:12).
10 I like to think, though, that Nishitani did not go so far as Watsuji Tetsuró ~O;t411tell, who saw
the "betweenness" as "an absolute totality in which self and other are not rwo."
11 A formulation I a m especially fond o f. I t seems to represcnt the necessary wedding of the
Buddhist notion of non-self and rhe Christian (not modernity's) notion of person.
91

VAN BRAGT
It can even be said, I believe, that Nishitani in his later years carne to see
reality-being itself-as "intersubjective." He extrapolares the real recogni-
tion of the personal Thou to the real recognition of things. We conceive of
and meet with things in their reality only when we relate to them asto Thous
that are in no way reducible to our consciousness but have an independent
existence in themselves. "The things that confront us are radically as them-
selves, in themselves .... Such a quality of things is best expressed by 'Thou'"
(NKC 24:111-12). At the same time, "things appear as being essentially
interconnected," an interconnection that is now described as "things com-
municating among themselves" by "language" in its transcendental sense:
they express themselves to each other, step out of themselves into the being
of the other. "Truth" then becomes "the language of existence" (NKC
24:114-22), 12 and we encounter the strong statement that "the personal is
the basic form of being (existence)" ( NKC 24: 109).
In his new emphasis on the body and the earth Nishitani appears to have
become especially sensitive to the "dark," nondiaphanous sides of human
existence: the given (e.g., NKC 24:61-66), the fortuitous (e.g., NKC
25:22), and the "necessary" that underlies freedom (as, for example, in the
"natural relations" of family and country); in a word, to the reality that
"comes to grasp us" (instead of the other way around), and, as it were,
"establishes" its reality by being inaccessible to the light of self-awareness,
reason, and the predicare, and is attested to only by the body. And something
that surprises one who knows the earlier Nishitani's "aversion" to "power"
(and will): he now stresses that the idea of"being" is innerly connected with
the ideas of "power" and "having" (NKC 16:183-85; NKC 24:203-207;
NKC 25:23). It all reminds one somehow of Tanabe Hajime's struggle to
catch "real reality" in his philosophy of species.
With regard to religion, Nishitani's statement that "when it comes to the
religious way of being, the matter of the body has a very great importance"
(NKC 24:211) seems to indicate a greater inclination to accept the (at first
sight) irracional "bodily forms" (image-ing) in religion. It is true that he lim-
its his consideration mainly to those religious "imaginary constructs" that
directly imply the idea of "earth," such as the Buddha Realm, Pure Land, and
Kingdom of God (in my incomplete check I found, besides these, only brief
mentions of the role of community [NKC 18:171-72] and ritual [NKC
12 This strongly reminds me of the scholastic veritas ontologica.
92
NISHITANI REV1SITED
16:186]). But it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that Nishitani was
ready to recognize other religious forms relating to the body in its link with
the earth. The role of food and communal eating in religion is, of course,
directly connected with the earth as the nourishing ground of human exis-
tence (the role of rice in Shinto and the Eucharist in Christianity are prime
examples). I can even imagine that the later Nishitani would agree with what
Takeuchi Yoshinori wrote about the role of bodily directions in religion:
It seems to me that in relation to humanity, God, or the transcen-
dent, is indeed "up there," a reality dwelling above, or at least
implying something that makes it inevitable so to symbolize it. In
my view, as long as a human being is determined by bodily exis-
tence, we cannot but think ofGod as being "up there." (TAKEUCHI
1983,p. 132)
The last element of change in the later Nishitani that I wish to mention
may have already been sufficiently indicated in the discussion so far, but here
I would like to look at it from a somewhat different angle. I cannot escape
the impression that, in his later years, Nishitani "bends backwards," as it
were, to explain anew the meaning of sorne basic Buddhist expressions
important to his emptiness philosophy in order to ward off certain common
one-sided interpretations of them, interpretations that he may have felt he
himself had held to a degree. In the new explanations the stress is always on
the point that, although at face value these concepts are uniformly negative,
they really express only one pole of a reality, of which the other (positive)
pole is equally important.
In connection with the concept of anatman (muga, non-self), we have
already seen how the later Nishitani interprets this term as "non-ego-like
subjectivity," in which being a real independent selfis justas important as negat-
ing the self to make room for the reality of the other. And, in an Otani Uni-
versity lecture in which he investiga tes the meaning of the Buddhist negation
ofthe "soul" or self, Nishitani declares that Buddhism wants "to radically tran-
scend the standpoint upon which one conceives of a soul. This is different,
however, from the standpoint which avers that there is no such thing as a soul"
(NKC 24:150). In his subsequent explanation it becomes clear that the
anatman thesis condemns the usual soul concept as being an abstraction and
substantialization of one particular side of the self (a side that is real enough
as one aspect or pole: the "inner" si de of the self as "a system with a closed
93
 VAN BRAGT NISHITANI REVISITED

unity") and attempts to restare balance by stressing the other side (the "outer," References cited
trans-individual side that communicates with all others "in the earth").
Something similar happens to the Mahayana term asvabhiiva ( mujisho ~ § GrLKEY, Langdon
1986 Review of Zen andWestern Thought, by Abe Masao. The Eastern Bud-
tE., non-self-being). We may first remark that the later Nishitani appears to
dhist 19/2: 109-21.
feel free to use the termjisho §tE. (self-being, own-nature) in a positive sense
as expressing a real si de of things, the si de we honor when we treat a thing as HASE Sh6t6
1997 Emptiness thought and the concept of the Pure Land in Nishitani.
a Thou. Mujisho then appears as a negative, counterbalancing, necessary, and
Zen Buddhism Today 14: 65-79.
salutary move, but not necessarily as the final and all-determining one: "The
standpoint of non-selfbeing has the significance of once thoroughly empty- LrTTLE, David
1989 The problem of ethics in Nishitani's Religion and Nothingness. In The
ing the selfin its relationship with all things in this world" (NKC 17:33).
Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji, Taitetsu Unno, ed., pp.
Thus mujisho too appears as a "second pole" that is not meant to do away 181-87. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press.
with its antipode, for it is repeatedly stressed that it is important to recognize
in a thing "a self-like self-being"; "without this, we cannot conceive of a MoMMAERS, Paul
1991 La transformation d'amour selon Marguerite Porete. Ons Geestelijk
thing" (NKC 24:315-16).
Erf 65: 89ff.
As a kind of conclusion, meant mainly for myself, I want to confess that-
MOMMAERS, Paul and Jan VAN BRAGT
provided Hase's picture of la ter Nishitani thought is basically correct and my
1995 Mysticism, Buddhist and Christian. New York: Crossroad.
own random notes on it are not too far off the mark-I feel much more at
borne in Nishitani's later thought than in bis earlier system. Indeed, most of NISHITANI Keiji ll§"~§iil
1961 Shiikyo to wa nanika ffi~cU:{iiJiP [What is religion?]. Tokyo: Sobun-
the reasons for my earlier objections now appear to fall away. There is no
sha. Reissued in 1986 as NKC lO. Tokyo: Sobunsha.
longer any "solo performance" of emptiness; due place is given to what I like
1982 Religion and Nothingness. Translated by Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley:
to call "being" or "the positive side of things"; disembodied spirituality no
University of California Press.
longer appears as the only authentic expression of religion; it is clear that
emptiness does not do away with the reality and importance of worldly SOGA Ryojin ~:ft:i:i~
1970 Soga Ryojin senshU ~:ft:i:i~~- [The selected works of Soga
things; and human discriminating cognition-though certainly prone to a
Ryojin], vol. 2. Tokyo: Yayoi Shobo.
one-sided view of things that has to be constantly corrected by the emptiness
view-is credited with an understanding of at least one true aspect of reality. TAKEUCHI Yoshinori
1983 The Heart of Buddhism. New York: Crossroad.
From this perspective I feel free to recognize more wholeheartedly the
enormous importance that the negative move of emptiness, so splendidly rep- VAN BRAGT, Jan
1966 Notulae on Emptiness and Dialogue: Reading Professor Nishitani's
resented in Nishitani's earlier system, has for our grasp of reality, for the
What is Religion? Japanese Religions 4/4: 50-78.
soundness of religion (Christianity certainly included), and for our spiritual
1992 Nishitani, the prophet. The Eastern Buddhist 25/1: 28-50.
freedom.

Abbreviation

NKC Nishitani Keiji chosakushii ll§"~§?iliH'F• [Nishitani Keiji's collected

works]. 1986-87 (vols. 1-13) and 1990-95 (vols. 14-26). Tokyo:
Sobunsha.

95
94
 Emptiness, History, Accountability
A Critica! Examination of Nishitani Keiji's Standpoint

JüHN C. MARALDO

N AN AGE WHEN the history of Buddhism is increasingly the subject of

I scholarly research-indeed, in the entire span of Buddhism's history-
Nishitani Keiji deserves recognition as one of the very few thinkers to have
offered a Buddhist philosophy of history. His project was to throw light on
Western, particularly Christian-influenced, conceptions of history and to pre-
sent an alternative from a Buddhist perspective. His alternative, moreover,
presents challenges to the most basic assumptions of modern secular historians,
who long ago abandoned the Christian and Enlightenment conceptions of
history. E ven the array of postmodernist notions of history that Nishitani did
not anticipate are called into question by his proposal. This essay represents
my own struggle to come to terms with Nishitani's Buddhist conception of
history with a particular problem in mind: the possibility of experiencing the
world as a sequence of events and of rendering judgments about those events.
I would like to take advantage of this opportunity, the occasion of the final
Kyoto Zen Symposium, to think through this issue, guided by our memory
of the clear voice that Nishitani Sensei once contributed to these sessions.
Let me begin by paraphrasing a point that Nishitani made as early as the
mid-1950s, in essays that would later become chapters in his book Shükyo to
wa nanika *~!O:L±1iiJ1.P [What is religion?] (NISHITANI 1961). 1 Writing about
the fulfillment of time in history, Nishitani writes that historicity is able to
realize itself radically only on the standpoint of emptiness [sünyata], the
standpoint of the bottomlessness of each moment. Each individual moment
of unending time possesses the very same solemnity that is thought in Chris-
tianity to be possessed by the special moments of the creation, fall, redemp-
tion, and second coming (NISHITANI 1961, pp. 238; 299-300; RN, pp. 217,
272 ). "In bottomlessly embracing the endless past and endless future, we

1
Translated as Religion and Nothingness (hereafter RN ) by Jan Van Bragt ( NISHITANI 1982 ).

97
 MARALDO
bring to fullness each and every moment oftime" (RN, p. 181). Whether one
believes in the events of Christian salvation history or not, Nishitani's point
here undermines the most basic assumptions concerning the experience of a
historical world-assumptions about temporal sequence and about the relative
importance of different events. Does the equivalence of moments proposed
by Nishitani allow for any discrimination of value? Can such equivalence
account for the experience of temporal events? What do equivalence, and the
emptiness underlying it, have to do with history? These are the primary ques-
tions that I will develop in this essay.
My first task is to clarifY the way in which Nishitani connects emptiness
and history. The first part of the essay will attempt to reconstruct Nishitani's
argument that historicity is able to realize itself radically only on the stand-
point of emptiness. This expository part is necessary simply because of the dif-
ficulty of his work. His reasoning is rarely explicit and the nearly incessant
excursions into various tapies make the connections less than obvious.
Lest my own presentation display the same difficulties, let me mention the
steps we will go through to answer the main question he poses. That question
appears to be a more generalized version of the abo ve question regarding the
possibility of val u e judgments. Nishitani asks, "What is the contemporary crisis
of religion and culture and how might Buddhist conceptions resolve the crisis?"
My first step will be to define the crisis or problem and describe its nature.
That will involve sorne explanation of the problem as a historical phenome-
non. Then we will need to show how emptiness might resolve the problem.
Those steps will require a connection between the conceptions of emptiness,
time, and history. I will try to give the explanation in Nishitani's own terms,
rather thari subject the terms themselves to a critique. In many cases I will
have to make connections and supply reasoning that are at best implicit in
Nishitani's writing.
Mter we have reconstructed Nishitani's problem and solution, we will be
in a position to examine my questions more explicitly. This part will offer a
critique and will review sorne related critica! treatments of Nishtani's work.
My own critique attempts not only to point out a shortcoming in Nishitani's
account of historicity, but also to identif)r the basic conditions that I believe
are necessary for historical consciousness to emerge. It is only on the suppo-
sition of these conditions that Nishitani's account appears to be deficient; but
in fact it was my struggle with his account that helped me better identifY
them as essential to historicity. Thus my statement of the elements of histor-
98
EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY
ical consciousness comes at the conclusion of my essay, and is the product of
my exposure to Nishitani's penetrating thought.
Finally, my critique is meant to leave open sorne crucial questions for fur-
ther exploration. 2
A Reconstruction of Nishitani)s Project and Problem
What has emptiness (Sunyatii) todo with history? Every student ofBuddhism
knows that emptiness is related to the nature of things: sunyatii thought tells
us that there is no inherent, lasting nature in anything. Every student also
knows that in Buddhist schools the personal realization of this insight is
regarded as part, if not all, of a liberation which today counts as religious (as
opposed to, say, political) . But it may come as a surprise to hear that the
notion of emptiness also relates to history (outside of the obvious fact that
sunyatii is an "idea" or product of analysis that emerged during the course of
the history of Buddhism). Nishitani's project, however, is not so much to
explicare the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness as to address "the problem of
religion and science" (RN, p. 46).
3
For Nishitani this is the most fundamental issue facing us today (RN, p.
46), and requires for its solution an appropriation ofthe notion of emptiness.
The problem itself is both a historical one, resulting from particular develop-
ments in world history, anda personal one, resulting from a crisis on the indi-
viduallevel. The name of this problem is "nihilism," which is also the title of
4
a series oflectures published in book form in 1949 (NISHITANI 1949).
2 The remaining questions should be investigated through the study ofNishitani's essays writ-
ten after the original publication of Shukyó to wa nanika in 1961, as well as in general studies of
Buddhist conceptions ofhisrory. Anides by HASE Shi5ti5 (1997) and Jan VAN BRAGT (1998) indi-
care the nature ofNishitani's later thought, although, of course, their aim is not directly ro exam-
ine the question ofhisrory. We should note that, whatever new developments there are in the later
essays, Nishitani did not alter his fundamental standpoint as expressed in Shukyó to ¡va nanika
when he assisted with and added ro its English and German translations as late as 1980.
3 Paul SWANSON ( 1996) shows that Nishitani's interpretation of emptiness or absolute noth-
ingness in RN is orthodox Buddhism in its avoidance of the extremes of nihility and substantial
being. Like Chih-i's threefold truth, Shukyó to JVa nanika offers a middle way. The recognition of
the "middle," according ro Swanson, "allows for the positive manifestation and even affirmation
of the conventional, for the actual living out of compassion" (SWANSON, p. 107). The mentioned
recognition would seem ro provide a "metaphysical," or better, a meta-ontological, basis for the
impon of history, which after all has ro do with the cotu-se of living in the conventional world. As
we shall see, however, Nishitani's account goes beyond a basis for living in the conventional world.
4 Translated as The Seif-Overcoming of Nihilism (NISHITANI 1990 ).
99
 MARALDO
Nishitani's thought on the subject was obviously influenced by Nietzsche
and Heidegger; like these philosophers, Nishitani sees nihilism as an event
occurring in history. Modernity brought about the loss of meaning and values
that gave human existence hope, spiritual sustenance, and the assurance that
human efforts are not ultimately in vain. Such values and meaning, once sup-
ported by the notion of something transhistorical or supernatural, were even-
tually undermined by the scientific worldview, which depicts nature as wholly
indifferent to human concerns. Ironically it urges, rather than obviates, the
personal quest for the meaning that even the scientist seeks in the face of his
or her own death. Modern science and technology exacerbate rather than
alleviate our fundamental need to feel that life is not in vain. Nishitani's ref-
erences reveal that he has predominantly Christianity in mind for religion,
and the European (if now globalized) worldview for the scientific one. His
book on nihilism suggests that modernized Japan fell under the sway of
nihilism because of its absorption ofWestern values and loss of tradition.
Hidden behind his treatrnent of nihilism and the crisis of personal identity
and values, then, we can discover the problem ofJapanese national self-identity
and values. The problem of nihilism, as Nishitani assumes it, definitely has its
political side, although it encompasses more than Nishitani's own política!
crisis or that ofhis country. Let me indicate why, keeping in mind my objec-
tive to describe how both nihilism and its solution are historical.
In the context of his career, this problem might appear to be one urged
upon him by the ravages ofwar, after the devastation and defeat ofhis country.
During the war Nishitani participated in dialogues in which he proposed that
Japan's mission was to awaken the world toa global, non-Eurocentric stand-
point. Whether and to what extent Nishitani failed to recognize just how
Japan-centered his vision was, is a question that has been explored elsewhere
(see MINAMOTO 1995, MARALDO 1995, VAN BRAGT 1995, and PARKES 1997).
In any case, Nishitani did not appear to be deeply disillusioned with his sense
of the necessity to awaken humankind to an Asían (Eastern) way of address-
ing and solving the fundamental problem of the modern age. It is mistaken
to see Nishitani as creating an apolítica! philosophy of religion after he aban-
doned política! writing. 5 His concern with the problem of religion and sci-
ence both preceded and outlived his explicitly political essays that appeared
5 William Ha ver, for example, holds this view in his mention of "a continuity between Nishi·
tani's wartime writings and his postwar exercises in an apolítica! and thereby 'innocent'philosophy
of religion"; see HAVER 1992, p. 630 .
lOO
EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY
from the late 1930s intermittently to the early l950s. This concern was evi-
dent even in his remarks in July, 1942, during the famous Chuó Kóron dis-
cussions entitled Kindai no chókoku J!l:ftO)II!L~ (KC), "Overcoming modernity"
(by which was meant "overcoming European modernity"). On that occasion
Nishitani introduced a tapie alien to most of the participants and seemingly
remate from the problem of the Eurocentric worldview when he asked:
What kind of religiosity will it take to give culture, history, ethics
and so forth, all of which entail a complete affirmation of the
human, the freedom to pursue their own standpoint, while at the
same time insuring equal freedom of activity for the sciences, whose
standpoint is one of indifference to the human, and then to unifY
the two standpoints~ (KC, p. 23; cited in MINAMOTO 1995, p. 218)
Although Nishitani would alter his goal of unifYing religion and science,
he continued to pursue a solution to the global problem of the disparity
between ethics, religion, and science-a problem that for him was deeper and
broader than the political task facing Japan. At the time, in 1942, Nishitani
thought the answer to this deeper problem lay in recognizing the nothing-
ness of the subject or "the standpoint of subjective nothingness," a notion
later expressed as the "field of emptiness." In 1942 he suggested to his Japan-
ese audience that when they respond to the deeper problem through self-
negation, at both the individual and the national levels, they begin to meet
the political task facing the nation of Japan: the "establishment of a new
world arder," a just and truly global, non-Eurocentric, arder (KC, p. 32;
MINAMOTO 1995, p. 219). One might object that Nishitani fabricates this
link between the deeper religious problem and the immediate political one,
but the point is that for him there is a link between the religious and the
political-historical.
Justas there is a religious undercurrent to his explicitly political thought,
there is from early on a political dimension to his philosophy of religion, and
even, it will turn out, to his appropriation of the doctrine of emptiness. Let
me cite one example. On the last page of Religion and Nothingness he writes
that "true equality is not simply a matter of an equality of human rights and
the ownership of property," which, he says, reflect the "self-centered mode
of being human" that lead to discord and strife. Rather, true equality takes
place "only on the field of emptiness." Nishitani's lack of elaboration leaves
it mostly to the reader to surmise just how emptiness ensures any political
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EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY

sense of equality, and I am not going to second-guess him at this point. Sim-
Although it is the closest of these philosophies to the Buddhist standpoint of
ilar statements about freedom are slightly more perspicuous and suggest that
fünyatii, it does not undermine time enough to reach this standpoint of
liberalism likewise reflects only subjective freedom and the self-centered
"time originating as truly bottomless time" (RN, p. 216). Ifwe can no longer
mode of being, whereas true freedom is "an absolute autonomy on the field
go above history and human time to establish meaningfulness, we must go
of emptiness, where 'there is nothing to rely on'" and where one makes one-
beneath them, as it were, and undermine them even more. Time and history,
self "into a nothingness in the service of all things" (RN, p. 285 ).
in other words (in Nishitani's words, that is), require emptiness for their real-
We would need to present an argument for these statements, or at least
ization.
interpret them more fully, if our aim was to develop a política! philosophy
Nishitani's reasoning is less than evident, and the following attempt is no
based on-or should I say undermined by-emptiness. Suffice it here to say
more than my tentative reconstruction of a possible argument. In order for
that, in the context of the modern problem of nihilism, such statements
history to have meaning, it must be possible to create something absolutely
assume that modernity is characterized by an increasingly widespread asser-
new in time (RN, p. 212), and only the emptiness oftemporal moments can
tion of subjectivity, of individual subjects defined by their own wills. This is
ensure that newness. Let me say why. Ordinarily the temporal moment we
a problem that has arisen in a particular age of history; it does not merely
call the present is conceived to be constantly slipping away into the past,
reflect for Nishitani the relevance of the Buddha's insights for all historical
which is given and unchangeable. The future is at least partially determined
ages equally. And if the problem is historical, so must the solution be. I have
by the present, as the present is by the past, but the future is not yet real. In
not clarified how a philosophy of emptiness might provide a "basis" for a
ordinary conceptions, then, the impermanence of the present moment, the
política! philosophy, but I will attempt now to explain how for Nishitani it
insubstantiality of the future, and the conditioning of both by what happens
provides an historical answer to the problem of nihilism.
prior to them, all seem relatively obvious.
The problem, once again, is that modern humans on a social (and even
The difficulty lies more in the conception of the past. If the past is com-
global) scale are consciously threatened with the meaninglessness of their
pletely fixed in its nature, and if it determines the present, then only a
existence. Nishitani recounts sorne historical ways in which various philoso-
transtemporal factor, something outside of time, could bring anything new
phies try to "save" history from being ultimately meaningless (RN, pp.
into the present. But there is no such transtemporal factor-at least not one
211-16). Christianity offered divine providence and the eschatological fulfill-
recognized in a nihilistic, scientific age. If, however, the past is equally imper-
ment of history at its end, the time of the second coming, when the transhis-
manent and insubstantial-that is, if al! temporal moments are "empty" of a
torical breaks into and ends the dimension of time and history. The European
fixed nature-then, first, there is no substancial difference among these tem-
Enlightenment proposed an increasing reliance on reason and even a histor-
poral moments, and, second, there is no hindrance to incessant becoming,
ical growth of rationality. Nietzsche imagined a principie of absolute becoming
the coming to be of something new. No moment of time can be "contained"
he called the Will to Power (his substitute for God) that explained why life is
or definitively defined. I take this to be what Nishitani means in saying that
the way it is but rendered our values meaningful only if we totally affirm the
"time originares as truly bottomless time" or that time "only comes about"
eterna! recurrence into which that nonhuman Will empties.
by virtue of the "infinite openness" underlying it (RN, p. 222 ).
But these and other philosophies, insofar as they offered either a transhis- There is also a kind of argument by metaphoric association implied in
torical guarantor or a prosthetic god in history, failed to ensure the mean-
Nishitani's text. It proceeds from his tacit Buddhist presupposition: in a
ingfulness of historical existence, since science and technology undercut
world that emerges in terms of pratitya samutpiida there is no first cause and
belief in any transhistorical reality such as God's providence. The course of
no final cause. Hence all things-not only things in time but also time itself
history itself-the ceaseless history of wars, for example-undermined the
as distinct if inseparable from beings-have no single cause or ground from
Enlightenment belief in cumulative rationality. And Nietzsche's eterna!
which they can be derived or from which they originare. They are ultimately
recurrence did not allow for something absolutely new to be created in time.
"groundless" (though they can still be caused or conditioned in multiple

102
103
 MAR&no
ways). On this assumption Nishitani can say metaphorically that there is an
infinite openness at the "bottom" of time, that, in other words, time has no
bottom or ground. He can affirm mythological phrases such as "from the
beginningless past" and can say more philosophically that "time must be con-
ceived ofwithout beginning or end." He can reason that each and every pre-
sent time or "now" is novel, since it has nothing that completely determines
it, and is impermanent, since there is nothing that sustains it (RN, p. 219).
The emptiness of time entails "newness without ceasing" (RN, p. 221 ). The
crux of this argument is the association of terms like "bottomless" and "infi-
nite openness" with the idea of no ultimare "ground" or cause.
I will not try to draw out any more implications of the claim that the past
is no more a fixed reality than the present or future-or more precisely, ofthe
claim that we should not view the past in this manner if we are to Jet time orig-
inare and ensure our existence of meaning. (Nishitani's writing freguently
slides back and forth between descriptive and normative statements, a style
that may have do with his rejection of realism. The stress, I think, is on the
"normative," that is, on an implied exhortation to make existence meaning-
ful, whether by re- or de-conceptualizing or by the practice of zazen.) The
claim, at any rate, would seem difficult to sguare with the idea of karma,
which Nishitani treats at length. The idea of karma, he writes, "expresses an
awareness of existence that sees being and time as infinite burdens for us."
The sense of inextricable necessity is the negative face of time, whose pos-
itive face is "one of creation, freedom, and infinite possibility" (RN, p. 221).
In this respect, the meaning of the newness of time is ambiguous: it evokes
both negative images of things vanishing like dewdrops and positive images
of things moving forward unhindered as birds do through the air. Basically,
Nishitani describes karma as an existential plight and not as objective causality.
He also alludes to a realization that cuts through karma, and refers to the
"field of emptiness" as transcending the "field of karma" (RN, p. 263).
The denial of any objective reality in karma may remind one of Nagar-
juna's analysis, but certainly the existentialist interpretation is different. Nishi-
tani and Nagarjuna differ "substantially. " 6 Nagarjuna's analysis dismantles
6 without a containing ground, in order to move on; history needs to be free
A poinr of convergence, however, may be found in Nagarjuna's answer roan objecrion in
which he affirms rarher rhan denies rhe connecrion berween empriness and origination: "By virrue
of empriness everyrhing is able ro arise, bur wirhour empriness norhing wharsoever can arise." See
(NISHITANI 1990, p. 180).24/14, quored ar rhe end of Nishirani's Self-Overcoming of Nihilism
Mülamadhyamakakarika
104
EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY
any real referent to the parts of time : past, present, future. 7 It is a challenge
ro our way of conceptualizing time and reality, ultimately loosening our hold
on such conceptions. Nishitani's discussion is also a challenge to our con-
ceptuality, primarily by being so difficult to understand. He presupposes the
interdependent nature of the parts of time but undermines not so much our
concept of time as our sense-or hope-that something outside time, partic-
ularly outside the present, will redeem the meaning of the present moment,
will give it lasting meaning. Time and karma have to do with the way we live
our lives; they are not merely mental constructions to be deconstructed.
Nishitani takes time more seriously, and because he too is a product of the
modern age with its acute historical consciousness, he takes the notion ofhis-
tory seriously.
Why does history need emptiness? More precisely, why is it that "historic-
ity is able to realize itself radically" only "on the standpoint of fünyatii"?
(RN, p. 217). Nishitani once emphasized tome that he is talking about "his-
toricity" [ Geschichtlichkeit ], not about history as a course of events. He seems
to have in mind historicity not in the sense of historical factuality (e.g., the
"historicity of the Buddha") but in the sense of the condition for the possi-
bility ofhistory, a sense that includes awareness ofhistorical conditioning. He
explicitly refers to historicity "as historical consciousness and as history
become conscious" (RN, p. 211).
While we may need a Hegelian imagination to understand what it means
for history to become conscious, the notion of historical consciousness is
consonant with the Buddhist idea of the conditionedness of all things, i.e.,
with pratitya samutpiida taken as a correlate to emptiness. It follows that a
recognition of emptiness could strengthen a sense of historical conditioning
and vice versa. This recognition is a sort ofsubjective prereguisite for the real-
ization of historicity.
More than historical conditioning, however, Nishitani stresses the newness
needed if time and history are to be "actual." This emphasis points to another
kind of prereguisite, one we might call ontological. It is the same as that for
time. Time needs to be empty, each moment needs to be "bottomless" or
of predetermination in order to allow "new, once-and-for-all" events. In the
7
See Mulamadhyamakakarika 19 (STRENG 1967, p. 205 ). Nagarjuna deconstructs time by
showing that one cannot take the pasr and the future as separare; rather they must be taken as
simultaneity.
lOS
 MARALDO
EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY

<nd, Nishitani wmbin" th, two kind, of pcocoqu;,¡" in th< w•y h< 'P"k' of
realization, meaning both recognition and actualization. A Critica/ Appraisal of Nishitani)s Philosophy of History
Th, S<ns.: of cocognition 'ugg"" how th< "coaliution of <mptin"'"
overcomes nihilism: it gives meaning to each moment oftime, while not priv- My reconstruction suggests that Nishitani's philosophy of history calls into
il<ging pmicubc mom<nt< m <poch,. (I will wm, b"k to thi, point in th, question the experience of the world as a sequen ce of events and the framing
fin,l, critic.l P"' of m y ""Y·) Th, """ of "'"'liz.tion impli" that N;,¡¡¡. ofvalue judgments about those events. We in turn can question whether the
tani', notion of <mptin"' i' nonn,;v,, •nd not mocdy d"ctiptiv, of (th, kind of historicity that Nishitani affirms can salvage the sense of history that
bck of) th, "''"" of thing,. w, tond to think of th< docttin< of <mptin,,., is demanded by contemporary (modero and postmodern) historical con-
sciousness. Today, after all, historians and philosophers do not seek any tele-
" d"criptiv< of "'lity, <v<n if it <nt,;¡, ' d"cciption th" <mpti" thing, of
th<it '"lity. Empty (of ind<p<nd<nt, '"b'tanti•l bcing) i' th< w•y "thing," ology in history or any transhistorical ground of history. Nor do they worry
(wnv<ntion,l d"ign,tion,) an On th, othoc h<~nd,
W< "knowkdg< th,, about meaninglessness if humans bear the responsibility for historical events
and for any evaluation of them. What they do seem to require is an account
according to Buddhist teachings, release from suffering requires that such
emptiness be recognized, even if this eventualJy entails a recognition that of how humans order the world temporally and find val u e in it. They simply
take for granted that human beings do find a temporal order in the world,
th<co i' nothing to b, cobs.:d. Emptin"' ;, '"in,ight th" W<, wh,<voc co<ility
we have, should attain. A normative dimension is implied in the notion that even if it is of their own making, and that human beings do expect to judge,
if not to be judged. Nishitani seems to ask whether we must, and whether we
one shou]d undergo Nagarjuna's analysis, for exampJe, as welJ as in the
should, conceive our life and live it according to these assumptions. But what
notion of the path ( mii¡;ga) in general. Nishitani's "Jogic" suggests that
happens to history in his own conclusions?
'Om<thing ttuly8 n<w c.n com, •bout, c.n b< .ctmliz<d, "wh<n" W< cowg.
Let us first reflect on the question ofjudging importance in temporal order.
nize emptiness. From the standpoint of people acting in history, then, "real-
According to Nishitani, historicity realized would give meaning to each moment
izing reality" is an idea] (andan ideal that, in religious terms, contrasts with
the goal of personal salvation) . of time, while not privileging any particular moments or epochs. It seems,
Ni,hit<~ni''
'tat<m<nt th" "hi<tocicity ;, •bJ, to "'lizo it<dft,dic<>lly only
however, that the human reckoning ofhistory does in fact necessitate that we
select and privilege certain times and events, ordering them in sequence, often
on the standpoint of fünyatii" also contrasts sharply with that of another
in causal continuity. Nishitani amply appreciates the sense of continuity (in
spokesperson for Zen, D . T. Suzuki, who commented, "Zen does not affirm
both its negative and positive aspects, that is, burden and freedom, respec-
or negare temporal actuality. Actuality has historicity, with which the ultimacy
of Zen has no dealings. " 9 tively). But his discussion of causality is less developed. He does speak of"his-
torical, causally conditioned being-at-doing [sa1J1-skrta]" and he fully recognizes
8
nihilism as an event brought about historically, with causal factors giving rise
to it. (Nishitani equally recognizes such a thing as nonkarmic action, which
Nishitani does not elaborare on what it means to actualize reality, much less emptiness, but
he does give an example of the kind of realization he has in mind in his discussion of humans real- he calls "unconditioned non-doing"; RN, p. 271 and passim.) Even ifwe jet-
izing the laws of nature. We not only discover and recognize such laws; we also utilize them in tison strict notions of causality in history, as both historicism and postmod-
technology to bring about new things. We are both bound by them and freed by them, i.e., freed
through technology from certain imposed conditions. We actualize the laws of nature by making
ernist views of history do, I think we give up most if not all notions of history
use ofthem while being bound to them. The mistake is to suppose that we humans stand outside when we elimina te the privileging of particular moments or epochs. 10
the laws of nature and can simply manipula te them to our own ends, or in general to imagine our-
selves ( or even "enlightenment" ) as outside of pratitya samtttpiida (RN, pp. 79-88). I once asked 10
a Shinshü priest what the].Buddhist sense of sin is, and he replied, "acting as if one stood outside Interestingly enough , Nietzsche's eterna! recurrence of the same can be understood as a
engi [pratitya samutpiida "
great principie of selection and discrimination. In the discussion following the presentation of this
9
essay at the Symposium, Graham Parkes pointed out that if Nietzsche is enjoining us to act now
p. 7. Zen hyaku
Cited dai 1995,
in IVES [One hundred
p. 20. Zen tapies], quoted without a page number in kHIKAWA 1993, as if our actions were to recur eternally, then we need to select our acts with great care. Nishitani
seems to overlook this possibility and criticizes Nietzsche's idea for precluding the newness of each
moment that is requisite for true historicity.
106

107
 MARALDO
In an interesting article on the ways that Zen history is conceived and writ-
ten, Steven Reine suggests that postmodernist theories, while closer to Nishi-
tani's conception ofhistory in sorne respects, also pose challenges to it (REINE
1994). Such theories consideras problematic the assumptions oflinear, tele-
ological time in efforts to define the origins or causes of things in the past and
to seek progress in the future. They stress that events are not objective, sub-
stantive entities in the world but rather constructions of certain discursive
practices. Because of their explanation of the structure of historical discourse,
postmodernist theories, more than Nishitani's theory, could account for the
historicity evident in Zen narratives (REINE 1994, pp. 255; 262-63). I think
it is true that Nishtani's account ofWestern conceptions of history does not
include postmodernist views, but I think it unlikely that he would be inter-
ested in their discourse analysis since he is not writing or even invoking a nar-
rative history of Zen or Buddhism. The relevant question for my essay is
whether Nishitani could accommodate even a postmodernist notion of his-
tory that does not assume linear time, teleology, or historical causation.
Postmodernist critiques urge the nonobjectivity of events and the relativity
of privileging particular moments or epochs, but they do not offer as an alter-
native a history of totally equi-valent moments. As Reine notes, postmod-
ernist theories reveal that the "primary structure of historical discourse is nar-
ration, which describes events selectively" (REINE 1994, p. 262; my emphasis).
If events are narrative constructions and not objective realities, then the
human discrimination among moments and the need for reflective evaluation
are al! the more riecessary. Postmodernist theories, instead of eliminating the
elements of history that Nishitani does, require them al! the more.
We have been reflecting on the matter of judging importance in temporal
arder. The questions I would like to reiterare at this point may be put this
way: in offering a refreshing way to understand each and every moment of
time as equally new and infinitely open, 11 does Nishitani thereby (in my
11
I ha ve traced Nishitani's equivalence ro Nietzsche's notion of the "supra-hisrorical" in Vom
Nützen und Nachteil der Historie ( MARALoo 1995, pp. 356-61 ). Nishitani himselffrequently cites
Zen literature ro relate the equivalence and equal appreciation of all moments: Yun men's "Every
day is a good day" (RN, p. 182 ); Dogen's "Every morning the sun ascends in the east, every night
the moon descends in the west. Clouds retreat, the mounrain bones are bared, rain passes, the sur·
rounding hills are low .... Cocks crow at four in the morning" (RN, p. 188); and Hakuin's "Yes·
terday at dawn I swept the soor ofthe old year away. Tonight I grind and knead flour for the New
Year's sweets. There is a pine tree with its roots and an orange with its leaves. Thcn I don new
clothes and await the coming guests" (RN, p. 217). To the last verse he commenrs, "Hakuin's
108
EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY
reconstruction at least) undermine the discrimination among times that is a
necessary ingredient of history? Nishitani himself assumes that there is some-
thing particular about modernity when he presents nihilism as an historical
problem . Is the solution to nihilism, that is, the "standpoint of emptiness," a
way of dissolving the problem by voiding the particularity of the modern era?
We can carry our inquiry one step further by considering the question of
discerning values in historical actions, moments, and events. The emphasis
here is more on the possibility of val u e judgments than on the discrimination
among times. The general issue has been addressed by Thomas P. Kasulis and
Masao Abe in their illuminating discussions of Nishitani's philosophy of his-
tory. Their examination and criticisms focus on the problem particularly as it
is relevant for theologians and buddhologians, but what they write is also rel-
evant to the problem of accountability in history.
Kasulis takes a comparative approach that both clarifies Nishitani's chal-
lenge to Christian thinkers and presents a limit to Nishitani's Buddhist view.
Kasulis makes the point this way:
In broadest terms, what Christians would assume and what Nishi-
tani explicitly denies is this-spiritually speaking, sorne things are
more important than others. The corre! ate of this principie for his-
tory is that sorne events are more important than others. (KAsuus
1989,pp. 273-74)
Christian theologians are challenged to explain how the world can be self-
determining or auto-telic, as the modern worldview prescribes, if another,
suprahistorical, source, makes sorne things and events in it spiritually more
valuable than others. 12 Nishitani contends that only the spiritual equality of
words are enough ro give us a glimpse of how radically actual time is in Buddhism."
12
M y paraphrase of points that Kasulis makes on pages 276-77. Kasulis notes that process the-
ologians with rheir systematic hierarchies and Karl Rahner with his levels of explication in religious
symbols address similar problems independently of Nishitani's challenge, but that current theologi-
cal dialogue would be greatly enriched by a direct confrontation with ir. It seems ro me, however,
that for most Christian thinkers the world or reality is precisely not auro-telic, but rather the world
(or the human spirit, ar least) is given purpose by a higher arder and teleology that orients ir.
Although ir may seem that "postmodern" theology disillusions us ofthis orientation, someone like
Rahner would contend that the differentiation between salvation hisrory and ordinary history is
precisely what is needed ro esrablish a standpoint for judging a hisrory that includes events like the
Holocaust. On the difference between salvation hisrory and ordinary hisrory, se e the secrion "The
history of salvarion and revelarion as coextensive [ not identical] with the whole of world hisrory"
in RAHNER 1989.
109
 MARALDO
all things, by virtue of their true emptiness, allows reality to be self-determining;
yet his view cannot account for the orientation that lets sorne things count as
intrinsically more valuable than others. This criticisni of Nishitani could, and
I hope will, be pursued by thinkers investigating the question of an ethics
based on fünyatii. In this essay, however, my focus is on whether it makes
sense at al! to speak of history, and historical accountability, if no evcnts are
more important than others.
Masa o Abe raises a similar question in his explication of Nishitani 's philos-
ophy ofhistory, but attempts to show in the end that fünyatii can account for
a difference in values. He notes that for Nishitani the origin of time and his-
tory lies in the infinite openness of the absolute present. Abe goes on to ask:
Since [Nishitani's] standpoint is so strongly absolute-present ori-
ented ... do not his ontology and view ofhistory tend to be weak in
terms of an axiological approach (value judgment)? (ABE 1989, p.
291) 13
Abe finds that axiology, or the study of values, is underdeveloped in Nishi-
tani's identification of is and ought (see RN, p. 195):
In my view, however, the standpoint of fünyatii must be realized
not only ontologically but also axiologically. This means that the
identity of being and ought to be of all phenomena-this is a condi-
tio sine qua non for the realization of fünyatii-must be realized by
including a possibility of will not do although ought to do. (ABE
1989,p. 297)
Abe finds ultimately that the equality of things and the distinctness of things
are both preserved in fünyatii . He claims that distinctness entails axiological
judgment, and that therefore the standpoints of ontology and axiology go
together. In his answer to Kasulis, Abe writes further that "each human being
is more important in its distinctiveness than a rock," and the symbol ofBuddha
better preaches the Dharma than, say, refuse does. We are not told yet why
sorne distinct things are more important than others, but Abe does consider
the next question: more important to or for whom? Abe answers, "Each
human being is more important than a rock not to God nor to the human sei¡;
but to absolute nothingness" (ABE 1989, pp. 297-98). Talk ofimportance, in
13
Abe's criticism elaborares a point made earlier by Hans WALDENFELS (1980, p. 117).
llO
EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY
other words, implies what we may cal! a dative of evaluation, but I do not
understand how absolute nothingness can function as a dative of evaluation.
I also do not understand how distinctness entails axiological judgment, as
Abe claims. On the contrary, it seems tome that we can distinguish between
things without imputing relative values to them. It is evident that difference
is required for the notion of equality; think of the concept of equal rights,
which entails distinctly different people. But distinctness does not entail a
hierarchy of values, a "better" or "more," a difference in quality.
Yet a difference in quality is something that Abe does recognize: humans
are distinct from things like mountains and water, in that humans necessarily
confront and must overcome the problem of oughtness in order to be realized
(ABE 1989, p. 298). 14 Indeed, human beings are more important than things
like rocks beca use they can realize the dynamic identity of is and ought, of the
ontological and axiological dimensions (ABE 1989, p. 299). 15 But Abe's sug-
gestion implies that the problem of "will not do although ought to do" exists
precisely on the standpoint of will. In Nishitani's terminology, it is the field
of consciousness, not of fünyatii, that would account for a discrimination of
val u es, an axiology. Yet the field of consciousness, the standpoint of will, is
precisely what must be overcome if humans are to realize their suchness. To
take oughtness as a problem, and will as a mode of being that must be over-
come, is to say that values are not basic, that the axiological dimension itself
must be overcome. 16 Talk of its identity with the ontological dimension turns
out to be otiose, and my original conundrum reappears. It would seem that,
14
Neither Abe nor Nishitani allude to the Buddhist mythology of the six realms of transmi·
gration, the rokudo ~~, in which humans are envisaged as the only beings capable of aspirating
to enlightenment. Abe might suggest that this is because only humans are confronted with moral
choice.
15
Thus to awaken to one's own suchness by overcoming the problem of oughtness, Abe writes,
is simultaneously to awaken to the suchness of mountains, waters, rocks and plants. Dogen writes
differently, however: it is not that humans awaken to the suchness of all things, but rather that "the
world and all sentient beings in it are awakened at the same time." "If we examine the matter
closely, was it the layman [Su Tung p'o] who awakened, or was it the mountains and streams that
awakened?" "Ifyou yourself, who are the valley srreams and mountains, cannot develop the power
that illuminates the true reality of the mountains and valley streams, who else is going to be able
to convince you that you and the streams and mountains are one and the same?" Adapted from
the translation of Keisei Sanshoku by Francis Dojun CooK (1978), pp. 106, 103, 114.
16
Abe writes of overcoming not only the problem ofkarma (as understood in Buddhism) but
also of original sin, by which he means, 1 think, the consciousness of good and evil. His profound
reading of original sin here is reminiscent of Bonhoeffer's interpretation in his Ethics.
ll1
 MARALDO
basically, nothing is more important than anything else (no pun intended).
There is, in this view, no history conceived as a progression ( or narration) of
events with inherently different qualities or degrees of importance. Historical
judgments that discern qualitative differences, values, and ranks of impor-
tance are rooted in human convention, culture, and caprice. Human choice,
human will, is the origin of historical discernment. But this view is precisely
the problem ofnihilism that Nishitani wanted to overcome. His notion ofthe
equi-valence of all times seems to leave the problem intact. I do acknowledge
that the same challenge is equally unanswered by most historical practice and
particularly by postmodernist theory. 17
Where, then, have we come in this inquiry? For Nishitani, the fulfillment
oftime in history, and the only possible ground for meaning in history, is the
emptiness beneath each moment that ensures its absolute newness . The real-
ization of this is the realization of historical reality. Does the realized human
being simply appreciate a rock as a rock, and a person as a person, that is, a
being confronted with decisions? Does such appreciation itself require a dis-
crimination of values, over and above a discernment of distinctness among
equal but different things? Does any historicity ( that is, historical conscious-
ness and history beco me conscious) require not only distinctness but also
connection, and not only equivalence but also evaluation?
Conclusion: Three Elements Necessary for Historical Consciousness,
and Three Questions that Remain
M y essay has made the following points regarding the significance of newness
for Nishitani's conception of history:
1) In order for history to have meaning, it must be possible to crea te
something absolutely new in time (RN, p. 212 ).
2 ) History needs to be free of predetermination in order to allow "new,
once-and-for-all" events.
3) N ewness is needed if time and history are to be "actual."
4) The emptiness oftime entails "newness without ceasing" (RN, p. 221).
5) The fulfillment of time in history, and the only possible ground for
17
For Jean- Fran~ois Lyotard, the preeminent theorist ofthe postmodern condition, the challenge
appears in the form of the diffirend, or disparity, in rules of judgment, precisely when judgment
is most called for- for example, in defining the victims of the Jewish H olocaust of this century
( LYOTARD 1988 ).
112
EMPTINESS, HISTO!W, ACCOUNTABILITY
meaning in history, is the emptiness beneath each moment that ensures
its absolute newness.
I have criticized this conception for leaving unclarified the possibility of
seeing historical times and events in sequences and as connected to one
another, and for precluding a qualitative discrimination of different times and
events. Such a criticism becomes cogent, however, only if those missing ele-
ments are essential to the emergence of true historicity. The challenge of
coming to terms with Nishitani's standpoint leads necessarily to the task of
identif)ring the elements that are essential to historical consciousness.
At the end of my examination, three such elements have become apparent:
historical memory, storytelling, and accountability. In order for a sense ofhis-
tory to emerge, we must be able to retain the past in the present and to antic -
ípate a future. This sort of retention and anticipation do not presuppose that
time is linear; but they do require a discrimination of what has happened
from what is happening and what might happen, as I elaborate in the last sec-
tion of this essay. They require a retrieval of the past, as does the second ele-
ment I have identified. In the activity of storytelling we give an account of
the present in terms of the past, and toward the future; we thus lend a sense
of continuity to human life. To the extent that our accounts recognize
responsibility, that we hold ourselves accountable, our futures remain open.
Insofar as we recognize that the present is the way it is because of our actions
in the past, we can recognize the possibility of different futures . Fatalist views
do not allow for historical consciousness .
How does it fare with Nishitani's view? First, where is the past retained,
the future anticipated, in his conception? Secondly, where is there room for
a sense of accountability, particularly where the field of karma, the effects of
the past, is broken through? And thirdly, even if emptiness does not produce,
or provide for, responsibility, we may ask what responsibility looks like from
the standpoint of emptiness. These are the questions that remain. But the ele-
ment of absolute newness that Nishitani names may be reconciled with the
possibility of history in a kind of account that he did not anticípate, a phe-
nomenological account.
We may find support from Husserl's phenomenology for the connection
between the newness of each moment and the possibility of history. Histori-
cal memory is the point of convergence here . Both Husserl and Nishitani
would, I think, agree that historicity requires that a sense of the past be
113
 ~

EMPTINESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY

MARALDO

importance, Unmon's answer brings the focus back to the unrepeatable, ever-
retained in the present. 18 Phenomenologically speaking, historical conscious-
new present, day after day equally good. Taken alone, the phrase "every day
ness of the past requires that a present consciousness recognize the past pre-
is a likeable day" transcends historical consciousness. But taken together the
cisely as past, and not as something presently being experienced. This holding
question and answer present the two sides of historical memory: the recalled
of the past in the present moment of consciousness is what we call remem-
past (and anticipated future), and the unrepeatable present. Moreover, his
bering. The memory of something past is a kind of repetition of the past
answer, which transcends valuing, is given only after the question sets up the
experience, however partial and perspectiva! that repetition might be. What
expectation of value . Does Nishitani's account of emptiness and history
is remembered as past is held over against a stream of present consciousness,
in arder to be recognized precisely as past. The ever-present stream itself is bypass our positing of value, and give only one side of the story?
never repeated; it is ever new. In other words, to have a sense of history, and
of events as past, a retention or recollection of a part of conscious life must Abbreviations
be layered on a temporal flow of unrepeated experience. 19 The unrepeating,
KC Kindai no chokoku ili:fi:O)/l:\B'2: [Overcoming modernity]. Tokyo:
living flowing present is the dimension that may be akin to Nishitani's idea
of "newness without ceasing." Fuzanbo, 1979.
NKC Nishitani Keiji chosakushii '@:fr-P.}?á~f'F~ [Nishitani Keiji's collected
Valuing, like remembering, is a mode of consciousness that for Husserl
works]. 1986-87 (vols. 1-13) and 1990-95 (vols. 14-26). Tokyo:
requires a layering. In the case of valuing, an object or event is perceived in
a way that adds to its merely sensual presence. Taking an object or event as Sobunsha.
RN Van Bragt, Jan. Religion and Nothingness. Berkeley: University of
valuable is not necessarily a second act, added after the first act of apprehen-
sion; the event or object can be immediately experienced with or without the California Press, 1982 .
valuing act. I have suggested that historical consciousness goes beyond indis-
criminate historical memory by assessing relative values to events. The problem References cited
with Nishitani's conception of historical consciousness would then be that it
seems to acknowledge only indiscriminate historical memory. ABE, Masao
1989 Will, fiinyatii, and history. In The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani
We may recall case 6 in the koan collection called the Biyanlu (Jap., Heki-
Keiji, ed. Taitetsu Unno, pp. 279-304. Berkeley: Asían Humanities
ganroku M!,iijj!J< [Blue cliffrecord]) to illustrate the problem. Unmon says to
the monks, "I don't ask you about befare the fifteenth day; try to say some- Press.
thing about after the fifteenth day." Unmon himself answers for everyone: CLEARY, Thomas and J. C . CLEARY
"Every day is a likeable day" (adapted from CLEARY and CLEARY 1978, p. 37). 1978 The Blue Cliff Record. Boulder: Prajna Press.
After Unmon's question acknowledges a consciousness of succession in time, COOK, Francis Dojun
as well as a valuing of the special time that is the fifteenth of the month, when 1978 How to Raise an Ox. Los Angeles: Center Publications.
the moon became full, and the days leading up to this were increasing in HAsE Sh6t6
1997 Emptiness thought and the concept ofthe Pure land in Nishitani: In
18 Nishitani makes this assumption explicit in an earlier essay, in 1949, "Hihan no ninmu to the light of imagination and the body. Zen Buddhism Today 14:
fashizumu no mondai" JJt'fiJO)fftñ i:: 7 7 :/ ;;(J.-O) MM [The duty to criticize and the problem of fas-
cism]. There he writes that "the recent war must become a real question for us today. Otherwise 65-79.
we will not be able to think authentically about the present situation . In this sense, that past is a HAVER, William
problem of the present" (NKC 4:461 ). 1992 Review of Nietzsche and Asían 1hought. ]ournal of Asían Studies
19 This rough description of the phenomenology of memory is adapted from the account of
Robert SoKOLOWSKJ (1974, p. 155 ). The application to history is my own .
51/3: 629-30.

115
114
 EMPT!NESS, HISTORY, ACCOUNTABILITY
MARALDO

HEINE, Steven RAHNER,Karl

1994 History, transhistory, and narrative history: A view ofNishitani's phi-
losophy ofZen. Philosophy East and West44/2: 251-78.
HEISIG, James and John MARALDO, eds.
1995 Rude Awakenings: Zen, The Kyoto School and the Question ofNation-
alism. Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press.
lCHIKAWA Hakugen
1993 Ichikawa Hakugen chosakushü 4. Kyoto: Hozokan.
IVEs, Christopher
1995 Ethical pitfalls in imperial Zen and Nishida philosophy: Ichikawa
Hakugen's critique. In HEISIG and MARALDO 1995, pp. 16-39.
1989 The history of salvation and revelation as coextensive [not identical]
with the whole of world history. In Foundations of Christian Faith,
pp. 142-75. New York: Crossroads.
SoKOLOWSKI, Robert
1974 Husserlian Meditations. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
STRENG, Frederick J.
1967 Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nashville, New York:
Abington Press.
SWANSON, Paul 1
1996 Absolute nothingness and emptiness in Nishitani Keiji: An essay from
the perspective of classical Buddhist thought. The Eastern Buddhist

KAsuus, Thomas P. 39/1: 99-108.

1989 Whence and whither: Philosophical retlections on Nishtani's view of VAN BRAGT, Jan
1995 Kyoto Philosophy-Intrinsically Nationalistic? In HEISIG and MARALDO
history. In The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji, ed. Taitetsu
Unno, pp. 259-78. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press. 1995, pp. 233-54.
1998 Nishitani revisited. Zen Buddhism Today 15: 81-99.
LYOTARD, Jean-Franr;ois
1988 The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. Minneapolis: University of Min- WALDENFELS, Hans
1980 Absolute Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue.
nesota Press.
New York: Paulist Press.
MARALDO, J ohn
1995 Questioning nationalism now and then. In HEISIG and MARALDO
1995, pp. 333-62.
MINAMOTO Ryoen im\ _& 1!1
1995 The symposium on "Overcoming Modernity." In HEISIG and MARALoo
1995, pp. 197-229.
NISHITANI Keiji i!B:fr§?éJ
1949 Nihirizumu .::. ~ 1) ; ( 1- (Nihilism]. Tokyo: Kobundo.
1961 Shükyo to wa nanika ffi~U:,±fiiJi.P [What is religion?]. Tokyo: Sobun-
sha. Reissued in 1986 as NKC 10. Tokyo: Sobunsha.
1987 Hihan no ninmu to fashizumu no mondai ffi:'fiJ0)1fti=c77Y;(l-O)
r",~ [The duty to criticize and the problem of fascism]. NKC
4:452-63. Tokyo: Sobunsha.
1990 The Seif-Overcoming of Nihilism. Albany: SUNY Press.
PARKES, Graham
1997 The putative fascism of the Kyoto school and the poli ti cal correctness
of the modern academy. Philosophy East and West 4 7/3: 30 5-36.

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116
 The Problem of the Other in Self-Awareness

HASE SHOTO

N THE PRESENT PAPER I would like to consider the significance of the phi-
I losophy ofNishida and Nishitani for contemporary thought via an exam-
ination of the "problem of the Other." Nishida-whose thought will form
my chief area of concern-placed the problem of self-awareness (jikaku § 1t)
at the foundations of his philosophical thinking, and his thought deepened
and matured with this problem as its core. But what place does "the Other"
have in the notion of self-awareness?
I have taken this issue as my focus of concern because "the Other" has
become a majar issue in contemporary thought, and I would like to explore
the way in which Nishida's thought casts light on this problem. Such an
exploration, moreover, provides us with a means of situating Nishida's phi-
losophy in contemporary streams of thought. A similar concern seems to
inform the position ofsuch scholars as Nakamura Yüjiró ¡:j:Jftt;ft=l'!~, who base
their criticism ofNishida's philosophy on its alleged failure to treat the prob-
lem of the Other. This view-no doubt influenced by contemporary move-
ments in philosophical thought-appears at present to form the general con-
sensus on Nishida's position, among both scholars who are critica! of Nishi-
da's philosophy and those who are sympathetic.
In section 1 I will first review the two reasons for turning our attention to
the problem ofthe Other in Nishida mentioned above. I will then pursue the
question of precisely where it is that the Other becomes a problem for us,
that is, where it is that we encounter the Other. In section 2 I will take up
the problem ofthe Other in self-awareness through an investigation ofNishi-
da's treatment of this subject.

Section 1: The Contemporary Problem of Subjectivity

A recent trend in contemporary philosophical thought is the reemergence of
concern with the subject, an issue that had been de-emphasized under the
influence of structuralist and poststructuralist thought. The subjectivity

119
 HASE
emerging anew is not, however, the autonomous subjectivity of modernity,
but rather the ethica1 subjectivity treated in relation to the problem of the
Other (as, for example, in the thought of Emmamie1 Lévinas). Let us con-
sider the conditions under which the problem of ethica1 subjectivity arose in
contemporary thought.
The topic of subjectivity occupied the central place in modern philoso-
phy-the subject as the ego or self was placed at the very foundations of aH
phi1osophica1 questions regarding the basis of knowledge, certainty, and
action. This led to faith in the autonomous human being who rationa11y
judges and acts. This human autonomy and subjectivity functioned as a prin-
cipie in the formation of modern society and culture.
Questions regarding this subject did not fade away, however. Rather, they
grew sharper and more thoroughgoing in existentialist philosophy, so that
gradually the subject lost vitality, 1ike a tree that remains standing even as its
1ife-force ebbs away. Then one da y it vanished from the stage of philosophy.
The clima te of philosophy had undergone an abrupt change, a change that
crystallized the day the structuralist anthropology of Lévy-Strauss criticized
Sartre's existentialism, leading to the replacement of existentialism with struc-
turalism. The main point of the criticism was that, even prior to their con-
scious shaping through the efforts of the human subject, human culture and
society were regulated by structures in the unconscious.
Structuralism held that the investigation of the structures harbored in the
depths of the unconscious could explain and elucidate human action on a
deeper level than could the examination of the conscious efforts of individuals.
It took as its main terms not consciousness and subjectivity but the structures
hidden within such domains as social structures, 1anguages, and the uncon-
scious. Viewing consciousness and culture as expressions of these structures,
it undermined the existentialist stance of creative action and history.
Structuralism effected what might be called a methodo1ogica1 and episte-
mo1ogica1 revolution in the realm of knowledge, but the negation of modern
anthropocentrism and subjectivity was not accomplished by the power of
structuralism alone . Portents of the collapse of modern subjectivity were
airead y present in the nihilism of Nietzche, whose proclamation that "God is
dead" indicated the hollowing out of the foundations of anthropocentrism
and idealism. The "death of the subject," in Foucault's expression, brought
on the collapse of the cathedra1 of this hollowed-out subjectivity, and was the
final settling of accoums foretold in Nietzche's writing.
120
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
The process from Nietzche to Foucault may be described as follows. The
modero subject, full of self-confidence, was gradually infused at its core with
doubt and emptiness through the influence of nihilistic thought, and as this
poison circulated, the subject gradually lost its self-confidence. Then, when
partial paralysis had set in, structuralist philosophy arrived on the scene and
proclaimed the death of the subject, uprooting and replacing the philosophy
of subjectivity.
Poststructuralism denies the independence of the subject, but to the
extent that it recognizes the working of the subject as a node of structure it
is the critica! successor of structuralism. The position of the subject is not
completely denied. The deconstruction asserted by poststructuralism is an
attempt to grasp, in the unconscious, the social structures that provide for
consciousness and self-understanding, then to jar and deconstruct those
structures so that the human possibilities which until then had been sup-
pressed and distorted at the base of the structures might be exposed and
brought to consciousness.
Poststructuralist philosophy differs from structuralism in this respect, and
possesses a practica!, subjective character. The salient characteristic of post-
structuralist thinking, however, is a kind of scientism that maps a centrípeta!
direction into the self and grasps the self through something externa!, and in
this it continues the basic line of thinking of structuralism. Structuralism,
because it remains a mode of reflection that reaches an end in the externa!,
does not enable human beings to make a genuine return to the self and thereby
attain the self-certainty indispensable to their existence-a failing that was
revealed by hermeneutical philosophy. Poststructuralist thought labeled as
"logocentrism" the standpoint of the self-confident modero subjectivity, and
attempted to undermine it by indicting the violence that it harbored and by
liberating the various possibilities that it suppressed. For its part, however,
poststructuralism lacked the means for forming a self out of those potential-
ities and therefore could not save the self set adrift by the loss of certainty.
Indeed, it increased even more the selrs diffusion, so that the degree of
nihilism was increased.
What remained after the collapse of the self-assured subjectivity of moder-
nity was the impoverished and wretched contemporary self-a self that
embraces self-disintegration, a self that is bereft of harmony, a s~lf that holds
in its depths the hollowness of nihility. It is not the subject as a self-confident
and unperishing existence, but as a disconsolate existence shivering with cold
121
 HASE
and running about in search of heat and light. It is the subjectivity that can-
not be called subjectivity-Emmanuel Lévinas describes it with the term
"vulnerability" ( vulnérabilité); Paul Ricoeur grasps it as the "renr or lacerar-
ed cogito" ( cogito brisé); Simone Weil calls it "anonymous matter" ( matiere
anonyme).
It was religion that first discerned the bankruptcy of the modern subject.
Religion did not, however, put to rest the guestions directed toward the sub-
ject, but rather asked them from a different angJe. What was reguested of the
bankrupr subject was no Jonger the "formation of a foundation"; rather, reli-
gion sought anew that which blows breath into the self, that which brings Jife
to the self at its very roots. Questions of this type, in going beyond philosophy
and its search for a beginning or foundation, made inevitable a return to what
may be called a poinr prior to philosophy. Already the subject, when consid-
ered as the basis of the Jife of the seJf, is not in the se]f and must be Jooked
for outside. What such a subject is faced with is the problem of the Other.
It is this type of subjectivity that is at issue after the collapse of the mod-
ern subject and the passing of nihiJism and structuraJism-a subjectivity that
has its basis in the Other which transcends the se]f. This kind of subject appre-
hends the self as standing in interaction with, or in response to, the Other. It
is subjectivity as response ( or responsibility), subjectivity as an ethicaJ subjec-
tivity, that has come to be an issue in conremporary currents of thought.
Ethics in this case is not simpJy one branch of philosophy but functions as the
source of phiJosophicaJ know]edge; it is ethics as primary phiJosophy.
Although the problem of the Other in conremporary thought has emerged
against this backdrop, ethicaJ subjectivity of this type is not new but has been
pursued since ancient times as the fundamental phiJosophicaJ issue of the
guest for the good. Thus it is not unrelated to the philosophy ofNishida and
Nishitani-indeed, it is possibJe to say that it occupies a centra] place in their
thought. The issue of ethical subjectivity is addressed as the probJem of self-
awareness by Nishida and deepJy Jinked to the probJem of "the subject at its
source" (kongenteki shutai fli!5Cá9 .i:ft) by Nishitani. Hence, in order to
explore the significance and the possibilities that the philosophies of Nishida
and Nishitani hoJd for the present, it is important to delve into the probJem
of how ethical subjectivity is grasped in their thought, and of how their phi-
losophy clarifies this issue.
Por Nishida, self-awareness was fundamentally apprehended in the inter-
relationship with the Other. He grasped self-awareness not as seeing the self
122
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
in the self, but as seeing the Other at the foundations of the self. In this sense,
Nishida states that self-awareness possesses a social dimension. The investiga-
tion of the structure of this self-awareness was his chief concern in his late
article "Watakushi to nanji" td:<Lc& [I and thou] (1932) and in his last
essay, "Bashoteki ronri to shükyoteki sekaikan" :f:j!pJT89~¡j¡¡:@.b~~é9ilt~lll.
[The Jogic of topos and the religious worldview] ( 1945).
The ethical subjectivity in contemporary philosophy is the subjectivity
unfolded toward the Other in the form of responsibility (response). In Nishi-
rani's words, the modern subjectivity is one that "breaks through its bottom"
and undergoes a fundamental transformation . In Kongenteki shutaisei ;fR5Gé9
.í:'f*t!: [Subjectivity at its source] (1940), he points out that where the bottom
of this modern subjectivity is broken through, a "bottomless subjectivity"
(datteiteki shutaisei RR.il\;89 .í:1tt1) opens forth. While Nishitani's "subjectivity
at its source" possesses a deep continuity with the ethical subjectivity of con-
temporary thought, it also includes a divergent element. Future investiga-
tions of what these two conceptions have in common and how they diverge
may help illuminate the present philosophical significance of Nishitani's
thought.
Nakamura Yujiro)s Critique of Nishida
Next let us consider the criticism of Nishida's philosophy by Nakamura
Yüjiro (NAKAMURA 1997a and 1997b). Nakamura asserts that Nishida does
not take up the problem of the Other, but the point of this criticism in fact
lies elsewhere: it is ro criticize Nishida's philosophy in relation to the Aum
inciden t. A summary of the argument is as follows .
In the religiosity of the J apanese, the notion of sincerity ( shisei it.IDit ) is
dominant, and the permeation of the notion of sincerity in the hearts of the
Japanese is the wellspring that gave rise ro the Aum incident:
This is beca use when sincerity ( makoto IDit , shisei) is absolutized as a
moral value, it is not impossible that, for its sake, lying or even
murder becomes permissible. I have come to believe that there
exists laten ti y in the social life of the J apanese people a morality or
mentality that considers it permissible, for the sake of "sincerity,"
to lie or commit murder ... . At times in this chapter [chapter 3,
"Zen" ~ [Good] of Zen no kenkyii ~O)~Jf J'G (An inguiry into the
good)], Nishida noticed that sincerity was placed as the highest
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 HASE
moral value, and considered this to be extremely problematic.
(NAKAMURA 1997b, p. 20)
Nakamura discovers sincerity (shisei) at the crux of Nishida's Zen no kenkyü.
He links the Aum incident, the religious mentality of the Japanese, and the
fundamental nature of Nishida's philosophy through this concept, interpret-
ing it in a rather distorted manner for the purpose of discrediting Nishida's
philosophy.
My aim here is not to respond to Nakamura's rather arbitrary logic, but to
examine his assertion that in Nishida's philosophy "there is no treatment of
the problem of the Other." I will conduct m y critique of Nakamura's views
from the standpoint of the questions "Precisely where does the Other exist?"
and "Where is it that we encounter the Other?"
Nakamura states that Nishida's philosophy is deficient because of its fail-
ure to treat the problem of the Other; he claims, furthermore, that this fail-
ure is related to a systemic inadequacy. This criticism implies that Nishida's
philosophy stands u pon the concept of "sincerity," and that because of this it
is subjective and lacks the "objective spirit" seen in Hegel and the "structure"
present in structuralism. However, that Nishida's philosophy lacks a treat-
ment of the problem of the Other and that it is systemically inadequate are
quite different matters. Although it is unlikely that Nakamura regards them
as the same, he does not seem to realize that they are in fact utterly unrelat-
ed. We must ask whether it is indeed the case that the Other may be found
in the objective spirit, in structure, or in system. Precisely where does the
Other exist?
It is unclear what Nakamura intends by the concept of the Other. If, how-
ever, he takes it in the sense proposed by Lévinas, then the Other does not
líe in system or structure, for the Other is apprehended as being either medi-
ated by or crushed under the dominating power of system or structure.
Beneath the holism of system or structure the Other is neutralized, and the
Other cannot be encountered as the Other. The basis of the Other that we
encounter as the infinite transcending our grasp lies beyond system or struc-
ture. The encounter with this kind of Other occurs face to face. To put it dif-
ferently, the Other exists as the Other within the gaze of the subject that
grasps itas the Other, so that we encounter the Other with a directness free
of all mediation. This kind of gaze is self-awareness. Nakamura asserts that
the Other does not exist in self-awareness, but if the Other is not encoun-
tered in self-awareness then where exactly would it be encountered?
124
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
Encountering the Other in self-awareness does not mean that the Other is
known through the empathy of the subject, nor that the otherness of the
Other is removed and the Other made into a reflection of the subject. The
Other infinitely transcends the subject and cannot be grasped by it. What
causes this Other to exist as the Other is the subject that apprehends the
Other; the Other exists as the Other within the gaze that sees it as the Other.
Again, a gaze of this type is none other than self-awareness. This means that
the Other is seen in the depths of the subjectivity as something that has
already entered the subjectivity. In this sense the Other does not líe within an
objective system; befare it can be located within such a system it exists in
interaction with the subject. Herein lies the problem of the Other. For Nishi-
da, self-awareness is the viewpoint from which the Other is grasped.
In arder to clarify that the Other is a problem of self-awareness, I would
like to quote Simone Weil, who indicares the delicate place where the Other
appears as the Other.
In everyone there is something sacred. But it is not that person's
character; it is not human personality. It is extremely simply "he," ·
this person .... Forme, the sacred is neither his individuality nor the
human personality within him. It is he, his whole. The arms, the
eyes, the thoughts-everything. As long as I do not hesitare and
vacillate endlessly, none of these are injured. If it were the human
personality within him that was sacred, I would easily be able to
gouge out his two eyes. Being blinded, he would continue to be a
human personality as befare. For I would not have touched his
human personality at all. I would only have destroyed his eyes .... If
it were permitted me to gouge out his eyes and it were interesting
to do so, what precisely would prevent me from doing so? .... That
which holds back my hand is my knowledge that, ifhe were to have
his eyes gouged out by someone, because of his consciousness of
having suffered evil at the hand of another, his soul would be rent.
(Collected Works 2:454)
That which stays my hand, even if I were allowed to gouge out his eyes, is
not the fact that his eyes are sacred. Rather, Weil states, "That which holds
back m y hand is my knowledge that, if he were to ha ve his eyes gouged out
by someone, beca use of his consciousness of having suffered evil at the hand
of another, his soul would be rent." In knowing that "his soul will be rent
through the evil done to him" one apprehends the absolutely inviolable or
125

HAsE
the sacred, and it is only this knowledge that protects the sacred. We touch the
inviolate sacred in this knowledge, and it is in this "knowledge" that the Other
appears; it is not that the Other exists objectively apart from it. The basis of
this knowledge is not within the self-it lies in the place where I transcend
myself at the foundation of the self. This knowing is rooted where I am tied
to him in the foundations of the self. In Nishida's words, it is based in "self-
awareness." The knowledge established where the seer and the seen are one
in myself Nishida calls intuition ( chokkan @:~ ), and all objective knowledge
is founded on this intuition. In this sense, the knowing that grasps "the Other"
is not subjective but objective. Insofar as it is intuition, however, it is also in
myself. Animals live unconsciously within this intuitive knowledge through their
instincts. To the extent that it is unconscious, there is no self-awareness pre-
sent. The point where this knowledge is clearly raised into the light of aware-
ness, so that the Other exists as distinct from the self, is self-awareness.
Self-awareness transcends system, but in self-awareness system also pos-
sesses an important meaning. This knowledge emerges shining in a human
being at a certain moment, but if the person does not desire to continue seeing,
in the next moment it is forgotten . In our being capable of ignoring this
knowledge and of pretending not to notice it lies the source of all human
wrongdoing. Por this reason, this knowing must be objectified and fixed
within a system, for in this way it comes to possess durability and constancy,
and one cannot so easily divert one's eyes from it.
Rights are the objectification of this knowledge. In this sense, rights are
like houses; just as a house protects us from direct exposure to the forces of
nature, so rights protect us from direct exposure to the various forms of vio-
lence that pervade society. Although human beings are surrounded by
nature, they exist not directly in it but within society. Human beings in soci-
ety are endowed with rights, and through this their personalities are formed.
As Nakamura points out, herein lies the reason that we cannot ignore the
problem of system as the environment in which human beings live.
However, personality in itself is not the Other; the Other transcends per-
sonality and never falls within a system. The kind of knowing that grasps the
Other as the Other does not lie in a system; rather, it constitutes a self-awareness
that is prior to the system. The task of philosophy lies in elucidating this
knowing that enables the Other to exist as the Other. The investigation of
self-awareness is none other than the investigation of the good-it is not
without reason that Nishida titled his first work Zen no kenkyü [An inquiry
126
THE PROBLEM OF THE 0THER IN SELF-AWARENESS
into the good]. There is a resonance between the contemporary problem of
the Other and that which lies at the roots of the philosophy of Nishida and
Nishitani.
Section 2: The Problem ofthe Other as Understood in Nishida)s Thought
Let us now consider the problem of the Other as understood in Nishida's
thought by tracing it in his writings. As stated earlier, the fundamental issues
in Nishida's philosophy develop in relation to the problem of self-awareness,
and self-awareness is inextricably bound to the Other. In his late articles
"Watakushi to nanji" and "Bashoteki ronri to shükyóteki sekaikan," Nishida
treats the problem of self-awareness in relation to the Other, which, as
explained above, is understood as the core of self-awareness. On the basis of
these two articles, particularly the latter, I will consider Nishida's treatment
of the relationship between the problem of self-awareness and the problem of
the Other in self-awareness.
THE STANDPOINT OF SELF-AWARENESS
Prior to "Watakushi to nanji" Nishida defines self-awareness as follows:
"There are various notions of self-awareness, but as I have often stated, I
believe that we must consider it to be the self seeing the self in the self'
(NrsHIDA 1987, p. 312). In "Watakushi to nanji," however, he rephrases this
definition as: "That the self sees the self in the self means that the self sees the
absolute Other in the self, and further, that the absolute Other is none Other
than the self' (NISHIDA 1987, p. 312 ).
In other words, "seeing the self' in the self is understood anew as seeing
"the absolute Other" in the self. Since Nishida takes the oneness of thing and
I as intuition, the seeing "self' is also the "Other" that is seen; either may be
considered primary. Late in life, however, Nishida shifted the weight of
importance from the self to the Other. The self, in its depths, touches that
which infinitely transcends its grasp, that is, "thou." This gradually carne to
hold great meaning for Nishida.
In Nishida's expression "the selfsees the selfin the self," "in the self' indi-
cares that which embraces both the seer and the seen-"the universal of
nothingness as the limit with nothing limiting it," or "the field (basho :t;jjpJT)
of nothingness." Hence, "the self seeing the absolute Other in the self'
means encountering thou as the absolute Other in the infinite depths of the
field of nothingness; late in life, Nishida calls it "hearing the call of thou."
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 HASE
What, however, is the "absolute Other" seen at the bottom of the self?
Nishida understands it in various ways. Broadly speaking, it is that which can-
not become the content of knowledge, as it transcends limitation by the self.
In this sense it is the content of "emotion and will" (joi 1-H:f: ). It is what
Nishida calls "thing" (mono). Nishida, however, advances beyond this to
state:
In self-awareness that sees the self within the self, that which is
thought of as the absolute Other seen within must be another per-
son and nota thing ( mono) . (NISHIDA 1987, p. 315)
It must be, in addition to the absolute Other, that which possesses
the meaning of making me be myself; in other words, it must be
thou . That which is thought of as thou in relation to myself must
be that which is thought of as the absolute Other. (NISHIDA 1987,
p. 342)
In this way, Nishida grasps the absolute Other seen at the bottom of the self
as the Other person, or as thou.
Thou must exist "outside myself'' as that which is independent of myself.
To recognize this thou is for myself to die. Further, when I amI through rec-
ognizing the thou, I die and yet live in the absolute Other. Concerning this,
Nishida states:
The self seeing the absolute Other in the bottom of the self holds
the significance of contradicting that which, in the bottom of the
self, absolutely negares the self. In this sense the absolute Other sig-
nifies that which kills the self, and at the same time-through the
self seeing the absolute Other at the bottom of the self (in that it is
indeed the selt)-it signifies that which gives birth to the self.
(NISHIDA 1987, p. 328 )
Nishida restares this as follows:
When the self sees the absolute Other in the self, through dying,
the self lives; in this sense we may say that through recognizing
another person the self becomes the self; at the depths of myself
there is thou, at the depths of thou there is myself. In this dialecti-
cal determination that which is thought of as the Other seen in the
self is not simply the Other but must represent the cal! of thou.
(NISHIDA 1987, p. 324)
128
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
In this way, Nishida reaches the following conclusion:
I and thou recognize the absolute Other in each Other's depths
and mutually shift into the absolute Other; hence, I and thou are
absolutely Other and at the same time, internally, mutually change
into each other. I and thou mutually stand in a dialectical relation-
ship. Therefore, I, through my personal response, know you, and
you, through your personal response, know me. We recognize the
absolute Other in our own depths and mutually shift out of our
own interiors into the Other; this is the authentic act of the person
in the mode of self-awareness, and in such action, I and thou m u tu-
ally touch each other. In other words, through the response of act
and act, I and thou know each other. (NISHIDA 1987, p. 318)
In this sense, Nishida states that
the genuine self-awareness that sees the absolute Other within the
selfitselfmust be social [an aspect ofsociallife]. (NISHIDA 1987, p.
318)
In this "seeing the absolute Other within the self itself," Nishida discerns
"expression" ( hyogen ~):JI.) , "speaking together" ( katariau ~! ~% "7 ), "response"
(oto Jt.:§: ), and "responsibility" (sekinin Jt1f ). These are bound together as
one in self-awareness, and he expresses that which binds them together using
the word "love" (ai 'Jt). Por Nishida, "reality" (jitsuzai 'kf±) is not some-
thing impersonal. In the conclusion to the series of articles "Jikaku ni okeru
chokkan to hansei" § jt¡ ::lí~'tt J.Ji1UlU:: ~~~ [Intuition and reflection in self-
consciousness] (1913-17), Nishida discerns "absolute free will" at the roots of
self-awareness. From this we see that, for him, reality is personal. Here we
must note that Nishida gives a special significance to "speaking together" or
"addressing." What is said is not important-speaking without speaking is
important. Here, the profound meaning of"expression" emerges. In the depths
of speaking there is an emptying, or an exhausting, of the self. There is sin-
cerity. There we find "expression." It is not possible to treat this matter here
in detail; I will simply quote severa! passages in which Nishida discusses the
"responsibility" that is grasped at the roots of self-awareness. He states:
The absolute Other harbo red in the bottom of the self possesses the
significance of the absolute thou; hence, we feel infinite responsi-
bility in the depths of the self, and it must be thought that the exis-
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 HASE
ten ce of the self in itself is evil.. .. Although we harbor nature in the
depths of the self, and although we harbor rationality, such
thoughts do not emerge. Furthermore, as long we consider the
Other seen in the depths of the self as still the self, responsibility
does not emerge. However, by the fact that I harbor thou in the
bottom of myself and thereby am I, I possess infinite responsibility
in the very depths ofmy existence. (NISHIDA 1987, p. 348)
This "responsibility" is tied to "speaking," and, deeper in its background, is
linked to love.
I see yo u in the depths of myself; yo u see me in the depths of your-
self. If we consider as genuine love the social determination that is
the union of I and you as a noncontinuous continuity, then our
determination in the mode of self-awareness is established through
!ove. (NISHIDA 1987, p. 343)
Authentic !ove must be the seeing of myself in the absolute Other.
Here, through dying in myself, I live in you. Through seeing the
absolute Other in the depths ofthe self, that is, through seeing you,
my self-awareness of absolute nothingness, which is that I am I,
possesses in its depths the significance oflove. (NISHIDA 1987, p.
349)
From this standpoint Nishida states: "We may consider that in the depths of
reality there is that which is personal, and upon the personal, reality is estab-
lished."
SELF-AWARENESS AND FAITH
As noted above, the later Nishida took self-awareness to be "the self seeing
thou as the absolute Other in the depths of the self." Where this takes place,
the absolute Other as thou is another person and, at the same time, is taken
to be the transcendent or the absolute. Here we must not overlook the fact
that Nishida sees the transcendent not outside the self but within its depths.
From this perspective Nishida states: "God must always be that which works
from our depths .... We see transcendence in our depths." (NISHIDA 1987, p.
353)
The structure of self-awareness that Nishida thus delinea tes may be said to
be, in a sense, also the structure of faith. Soga Ryojin ~#:.mi~, in Hongan no
Butchi ;;j5:/JJi0)1L±t!!. [The Buddha-ground of the Primal Vow] (SOGA 1933),
130
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
understands the relationship between "faith" and its object, Amida Buddha's
Primal Vow, in a manner that very closely resembles the structure of self-
awareness developed by Nishida in "Watakushi to nanji." Hence, by consid-
ering the structure of faith that Soga elucida tes, it is possible to cast light on
the structure of self-awareness in Nishida.
We know that Nishida read Soga's Hongan to Butchi; from a letter he wrote
to Nishitani in August, 1942, it appears that he had borrowed a copy ofthe
book from Nishitani and, finding it interesting, bought a copy for himself.
He writes: "I find the book Hongan no Butchi rather interesting. Where is
this book available? Where in Kyoto can books of this kind be found?" Nishi-
da also heard about other works by Soga from Nishitani, and borrowed
books by the Frenchman Félix Ravaisson.
It is not clear precisely why Nishida was interested in Soga's book. How-
ever, there is something in Nishida's view of self-awareness-"seeing the
absolute Other in the depths of the self, and seeing this Other as the self''-
that is in concord with the relationship Soga sees between faith and Vow.
Soga grasps Amida Buddha's Primal Vow as lying deep within oneself. He
states that Amida's Primal Vow, which is the object of faith, is not to be
found outside of faith but is discovered within it, and that it is from there that
faith unfolds. Soga thus subtitles his work, The World ofthe Vow that Faith
Unfolds from Within.
When the term faith is used, people commonly think of the object of faith
as similar to the object of consciousness and seek it outside of the self. This,
however, is superstition or false faith according to Soga (in Nishida's words,
it reflects "the stance of the self of desires"). True faith must seek its object
within faith. Faith deepens within the self, and that which is discovered within
the selfis Amida Buddha's Primal Vow. Soga states:
In short, when faith works facing outward, it is superstition. Con-
trariwise, to pursue the source of one's faith within is true faitl1.
Faith that seeks Buddha within one's own subjectivity is true faith,
and the pursuit ofBuddha outside ofand apart from the selfis false
faith. Faith seeks the essence of faith, the basis of faith, within faith
itself. Faith seeks the source of faith, the basis of faith as the mean-
ing and the content of faith itself, within itself. Seeking in this manner
is true, genuine, and pure faith. The experience of faith as pure is
none other than faith itself; faith itself reflects on itself and seeks
Buddha in itself, seeks the principie of the Buddha's salvation in
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 HASE
itself. In other words, faith is satisfied with faith itself, and through
being satisfied, deepehs itself. This is the true evidence of faith, and
what the founder Shinran speaks of as the "faith of Jodo Shinshü"
is such faith. (SOGA 1970, p. 233)
Hence,
A person r:¡lJs to mind the Buddha, calls to mind the Buddha's Pri-
mal Vow, tlls to mind the Buddha's power of salvation apart
from faith. Shin studies, when conceived of along such lines, should
not be called Shin studies. (SOGA 1970, p. 235)
Soga poses the question of what genuine Shin studies is, and states that it is
to progressively clarifY the interior landscape of faith. In other words, reli-
gious faith is like a sealed jewel box. It is to confess openly about the box, to
open up and disclose the interior fa ce of true faith-what kind of mechanism
it harbors within, what it holds inside-with the power of faith itself, with the
discernment of faith that faith itself possesses. It is to clarifY this path.
Soga further states: "There is, within faith itself, a mysterious content that
should be illuminated by faith itself." He declares that this is what is called
the Vow. Nishida speaks ofthis elucidation ofthe Vow as the content offaith
from within faith as "seeing the absolute Other in the depths of the self." He
also speaks ofitas "hearing the calling voice ofthou in the depths ofthe self."
SELF-AWARENESS AND IMMANENT TRANSCENDENCE
In his last essay, "Bashoteki ronri to shükyoteki sekaikan," Nishida calls the
self's seeing the absolute Other in the depths of the self "immanent tran-
scendence," and states, "Religion must always be immanently transcendent."
Further, he states, "We must always transcend inwardly. It is immanent tran-
scendence that is the path to new culture" (NKZ 11:461 ). What is important
here is the clarification of the uniqueness of the relationship of self and Other
in this immanent transcendence. Nishida expresses it with the term "inverse
correspondence" (gyakutaio :i1!:Mr.G ). This concept is extremely difficult to
understand, but we should note that it accurately grasps the characteristic
nature of the relationship between self and absolute Other in self-awareness
or in the awareness of faith.
Nishida's concept of"inverse correspondence" expresses the opposite rela-
tionship from "object logic." In object logic the object exists outside of the
self; ifi approach it, it emerges in front of me, and ifi go away from it, it dis-
132
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
appears from befare my eyes. This kind of relationship is self-evident and
familiar to us, and is one that domina tes the ordinary world in which we carry
on our daily lives.
However, there are also relationships in which that which is infinitely sep-
arated from us is closest to us, and that which is closest to us is infinitely far.
In actuality, the world of such relationships is the world of the relationship of
person and person, or the world of the relationship of person and absolute
Other; it is the world of which it can be said that we are living in the true
sense, the world that may be called interiority ( naimensei PliiDtt ), the world
of emotion and will (joi i1J:f: ). "Inverse correspondence" is the relationship
that Nishida sees as governing this kind of world.
The depths of the world of inverse correspondence cannot be reached
through even the most thoroughgoing conceptual analysis, so I would like to
attempt a view from a different perspective. Por example, I believe that one
may se e the world of in verse correspondence in the words of Nishitani about
his teacher Nishida Kitar6. Nishitani states that on the occasion of his depar-
ture for E urape he received severa! shikishi (one-foot square stiff paper cards)
with inscriptions from Nishida. Nishida writes:
On two shikishiwere inscribed a poem in Japanese anda passage of
Chinese verse. The J apanese poem read:
When the flowers bloom
Think of what spring is like
In your Yamato home of Yoshida.
And on another the Chinese poem:
Though apart ten thousand miles
We see the crescent moon over Ch'ang-an.
On two others he wrote:
Nanchuan says the everyday mind is the Way
and
Speak to heaven silently
Silently walk with heaven.
I suppose he chose these last two verses intending them to be maxims
forme during my time in foreign lands. But as I think back on them
now, they also seem to illumine the spirit of his own philosophy.
(NKC 9:44-45; NK pp. 32-33)
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 HAsE
At the clase of bis essay, Nishitani states:
In bis later years, Nishida was fond of quoting Daito Kokushi's
words:
To be apart from one another for milJions of eons and
not to be distant for a single moment
T o be together alJ da y long and not together for a sin-
gle instant.
Comparing this to the similar verse, "Though apart ten thousand
miles/ We see the crescent moon over Ch'ang-an," which he had
presented to me sorne ten years befare when I was about to depart
for Europe, one notices a deepening in bis state of mind, a pro-
found grasp ofhuman life that is very hard for modern Japanese to
see and understand. (NKC 9:50; NK p . 38)
Tho<e wocd' of Ni,hitoni oxpco, tho dopth, of tho wodd indicarod by
"inverse correspondence," depths that become even clearer through a com-
pari,on with tho lino, "Wo '" tho cmcont moon o m Ch 'ang-an." U,ing tho
imago of tho moon, thi, v"" convoy, tho notion that, though wo may be
separated by ten thousand leagues, our minds are stilJ in contact. Then the
words ofDaito Kokushi break through any remaining boundaries of distance.
Nishitani speaks of this as a "grasp of human life." This grasp resonares with
world of faith, of which it is said, "The Buddha's intentions are difficult
thefathom."
to
The concept "inverse correspondence" indicares the nature of the world
of self-awareness, and also the nature of the worJd of faith. Let us consider
once more at the worJd ofinverse correspondence, this time from Soga's per-
spective. Soga, asking himself"What is the summons of Amida Buddha's Pri-
mal Vow?", remarks that it is not a voice calJing from someplace distant or
outsido, liko a pacont calling a child. Soga 'aY' that tho voico of a child calling
his parent in his heart is the voice of the parent calJing the child. The vow or
t~e
aspiration of source within us is the voice of Amida Buddha calling us.
Soga Hato, that, in tho wodd of puco fuith, "th"' i' no voleo of tho pacont
calJing the child apart from the voice of the child calJing the parent."
In other words, our "mind of aspiration" or "mind aspiring for birth in the
Pure Land," in which we are deeply mindful of Amida Buddha, is "the voice
of Amida Buddha summoning us." Thus there is no "call of Amida Buddha"
134
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
apart from our "mind aspiring for birth," and we are left completely alone in
a world of absolute solitude. What there is is only my voice, only a tautology.
But this tautology is the sole means by which we touch the absolute. Soga
states this as follows.
There is no voice of Amida Buddha calling to us apart from our
voice calling Amida Buddha. From a certain viewpoint this may
seem an extremely lonely notion. Although I call and call, my par-
ent does not answer. [But] the voice in which I call my parent, who
does not know, is the voice ofmy parent calling me. When we real-
ize this, we are genuinely able to receive the true wonder and pre-
ciousness in the depths ofloneliness. (SOGA 1933, p. 244)
When we fail to grasp this tautology, we either remain enclosed in an athe-
istic world or we advance toa pantheistic world. When we grasp it correctly,
however, the world of faith-the world of "those whose birth in the Pure
Land is truly settled," the world of "inconceivable birth," or simply the
"inconceivable world"-opens forth . Ueda Shizuteru states that Nishida's
"inverse correspondence" is well expressed in the myo ~y (marvelousness)
spoken of by D. T. Suzuki; the inconceivability of "those truly settled" may
be called "marvelous." In Kotoba no jitsuzon § ji€ O)~ff [The existencial real-
ity oflanguage] (UEDA 1997), he states, "If one speaks of salvation, salvation
is not there in the way of speaking of is." Inconceivability should be under-
stood in this way. True faith is to genuinely understand this tautology. Soga
calls the world that opens forth when faith is truly grasped the "symbolic
world."
SELF-AWARENESS
The world of self-awareness understood through the terms "inverse corre-
spondence" and "immanent transcendence" may be said to be also the world
of faith, and Soga terms this a "symbolic world," explaining it with the
strange expression "the Primal Vow as watershed" or "great divide." He
states that "the Primal Vow as watershed" is that which manifests "the Vow
of the truly settled."
What Soga indicares by this expression is the connection established by
means of a severance. This kind of relationship represents the structure of
"the truly settled." Self and Other, the world we Ji ve in and the transcendent
world, must be joined in such a way that they are separated by a watershed.
In other words, the two are not identical-only through being separated by
135

HASE
an absolute divider is it possible for the two worlds to be joined. Even as we
carry on with our lives in the world, we can, at the same time and within this
very world, live in a world that transcends this world: This is precise! y beca use
the two worlds are divided by a watershed, which which makes it possible for
the transcendent world to be reflected in the world we live in. Soga calls this
kind of world the "symbolic world." This is not a monistic world in which
self and Other are nondual, but a dualistic world that includes "the non-
monism of self and Other." It might also be called a "doubled world."
Self and Other, this shore and the other shore, are absolutely divided. This
is because the Other, or the other shore, is formless and does not belong to
our world. The Other has no form or shape. The Other that we touch and
speak to is something familiar, but must not be considered as having form-
what we see in the Other is formless and infinite. For this reason, Lévinas
states that the visage that we see in the Other is not an object of perception.
The visage constantly eludes a form that becomes an object of perception and
reflects within itself that which is formless; this that is formless is infinite. The
Other is infinite; hence it does not belong to this world.
Lévinas states that the formless infinite descends to where we are and
reflects itself in a visage. Since the infinite reflected in the visage does not
belong to this world, it appears in this world secretly taking invisible form. It
appears in the form of a widow or orphan, in the form of a foreigner. That
which is highest appears in the world in the lowest place. It appears in the
plea, "Please do not kili me!" Hence Lévinas states that it is the glory of the
infinite that, in touching violence, it expresses in its visage the plea, "Please
do not kili me," and that in response to this we bear infinite responsibility.
In Lévinas the concept of visage la ter deepened into the concept of trace.
Trace refers to the indication that something not belonging to this world has
passed through it. It is the mark of the passing of something that cannot be
grasped, cannot be seen, something that is mysterious. Lévinas understands
the concept of trace in relation to the problems of time, history, and aging.
Time, aging, or the wrinkles of a visage leave traces with us, and these are
seen as proof that the infinite has passed by. Lévinas thus seeks to open a path
in time connected with that which is beyond time. For this reason he states
that "goodbye" (adieu) is "to God" (a Dieu) or "in God." Lévinas's con-
cepts of "visage" and "trace" were developed in a different context, but they
possess points in common with the world that Nishida grasped as "inverse
correspondence" and "expression."
136
THE PROBLEM OF THE ÜTHER IN SELF-AWARENESS
The world, however, that Lévinas sought to indicate through the concept
of trace is also related to the world that Nishitani speaks of in "Kaze no koko-
ro" }!\,O){, [The heart of the wind] (NKC, vol. 20). The absolute Other
(called the tathiigata), like the wind that blows in the sky, is invisible to us.
The human being as the Other is like this. We cannot reach the wind that
blows in the innermost depths of the heart of the self itself. However, the
wind that blows both in the universe and in our hearts leaves its traces. In this
essay there is a passage that speaks of hearing in the whisper of the leaves of
rrees in a school courtyard the quiet that may be called the wind that flows
through the cosmos. In a different passage Nishitani records the following
poem by a fifth-grade schoolgirl about seeing the wind in a single autumn
lea f.
This year again I had forgotten all the same.
Something forgotten by the wind.
I had forgotten that it had green color.
In the autumn leaf there is the color of red.
In the ginkgo leaf there is the color of yellow.
I had forgotten the color of each.
(NKC 20:vi)
As Nishitani discerns in the wind, the empty sky as the formless infinite-
though it is in a different context-is apprehended within a person's heart as
the absolute Other, and from the perspective of the responsibility for pro-
tecting it, the problem of self and subjectivity is faced. Here, the problem that
Heidegger pursued with regard to the humn relationship with nature is pur-
sued in regard to the human relationship with society. This is the path that
Lévinas, who resisted Heidegger, sought to open. In the thought ofNishida
and Nishitani these two directions are included simultaneously. Herein lies
the richness and originality of their philosophy.
Abbreviations
Nishitani Keiji chosakushü ]1§;a.~di~1'F~ [Nishitani Keiji's collected
NKC
works]. 1986-87 (vols. 1-13) and 1990-95 (vols. 14-26). Tokyo:
Sobunsha.
Nishida Kitaro zenshü "@83 ~1P-l'!~~~ [The complete works ofNishida
NKZ
Kitaro], 3rd printing, 1978-80. 19 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
137
 HAsE

References cited
NAKAMURA Yüjiro r:f:lHtitt=f!~ Practising Philosophy as a Matter of Life and Death
1997a Toinaosareta Nihonjin no Shükyosei rah>~~ht.: 8 :<fi:l\.(1)*~1'1
[Revisiting the religiosity of the Japanese ]. Shincho, August.
1997b "Makoto" to iu dotokuteki kachi ni tsuite rWiXJ~v'-J@:{eé<Jfrffi1ih:: GRAHAM PARKES

-:J 1t' T [ On the moral val u e of "sincerity"]. In Uchinaru mono to shite

no shükyo I*J ~ 7.> 'b (1) ~ L T O)*~x, Gendai Nihon Bunkaron ~ 1t 8 :<fi:
X{tff~ 12. Tokyo: Iwanami .
NISHIDA Kitaro 11lH13~~f!~
1987 Bashoj Watakushi to nanjit!J?kt.Jt.:<L~&
[Topos; I and thou]. Edited
From the very outset lije is at one with death
by Ueda Shizuteru. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (NISHITANI, Religion and Nothingness)
SOGA Ryojin ~ftHii~
CHOICE OF TOPIC comes from the experience of attending the Kyoto
1933 Hongan no Butchi :<fi:i9Jf(l){Lfth [The Buddha-ground of the Primal
Vow]. Tokyo: Daito Shuppan. M Y
Zen Symposium (the second and second-to-last meetings), and from
1970 Soga Ryojin senshü ~ftlii~iE~ [Selected works ofSoga Ryojin], vol.
5. Tokyo: Yayoi Shobo.
reflection on that experience. It has to do with the quiet presence here, in this
beautiful site, ofHirata-roshi and Sasaki-roshi and their colleagues from Ten-
VEDA Shizuteru J:E13M~R ryü-ji, as well as with the earlier presence of Nishitani Keiji and his later
1997 Kotoba no jitsuzon: Zen to bungaku §~O)~;¡':f-flji~;t~ [The exis- absence. It comes also from reflection on a main theme of the symposium-
tencial reality of Ianguage: Zen and literature]. Tokyo: Chikuma the place of religion and philosophy in the modern world-with a view to
Shobo.
furthering and deepening the dialogue between Western philosophy and Zen
thought.
Focus for a narrower theme stems from a feeling of alienation from the
profession of philosophy as it is practised in the United States and Europe,
and from a sense that this practice is for the most part not authentic. On the
personallevel it is prompted by an experience of alienated labor (in the Marx-
ist sense), a disconcerting awareness that a split is developing between my
work as a philosopher and my life as a human being. This raises the question
ofwhat philosophical practice is-or can be-today. We know what it means
to speak of someone's practising Catholicism or Buddhism, or practising a
profession such as law or medicine, but what about practising philosophy?
(The fact that we have a field today called "applied philosophy" suggests that
the discipline has lost its connection with life, such that it now has to be
applied to life's problems.) This topic is, of course, far too large for a conclusive
treatment here, and so what follows is intentionally open-ended, consisting
more of suggestions for future lines of inquiry than statements .of theses or
conclusions.
I want to begin by following Heidegger in his emphasis on the need for a
step back ( der Schritt zurück) if we are ro make progress along the path of
138

139
 PARKEs
thinking. The kind of step back I have in mind would grant us a broader per-
spective on the historical traditions in the West from the context of which a
more fruitful engagement with Zen thought might be undertaken. My own
efforts in this area up to now, inspired by the work of Nishitani, have been
directed toward points of contact between Zen and such modern thinkers as
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Sorne scholars-like Ueda
Shizuteru-have followed Nishitani in reaching farther back in the Western
tradition to draw illuminating parallels with the thought of Meister Eckhart.
But there has not, to my knowledge, been much exploration of earlier West-
ern philosophies in this context.
In the essay "Zur Seinsfrage" ( 1955) Heidegger advocates the cultivation of
what he calls "planetary thinking," a precondition for which will be "dialogue
between European and East-Asian languages." But he goes on to emphasize
that "neither of them can by itself open up and ground this real m" for pos-
sible dialogue (HEIDEGGER 1967a, p. 252 [1958, p. 107]). In his 1953 essay
"Wissenschaft und Besinnung" Heidegger writes that every meditation on the
present situation must be rooted in "our historical Dasein" by way of "a dia-
logue with the Greek thinkers and their language." He then adds, pregnantly:
"This dialogue has hardly even been prepared yet, and remains in turn the pre-
condition for our inevitable dialogue with the East-Asian world" (HEIDEGGER
1967b, 1:39; 1977, p. 158). Sorne twenty years later in his famous Der Spiegel
interview, Heidegger, discussing the possibility of attaining "a free relation-
ship to the world of technology," makes a comment about Zen Buddhism
that is remarkable for being his only published pronouncement on Zen:
I am convinced that it is only from the same part of the world in
which the world of modern technology arose that a reversal can
come about, and that it cannot happen by way of an adoption of
Zen Buddhism or any other Oriental experience of the world. In
order to think differently we need the help of the European tradi-
tion and a reappropriation of it. Thinking is only transformed by a
thinking that is from the same descent and provenance.
(HEIDEGGER 1988, p. 106)
As a dismissal of a naive substitution ofEastern wisdom for Western think-
ing, this passage is clearly unobjectionable. However, the point of Heideg-
ger's earlier (and several la ter) remarks on this topic is precisely that a prop-
er "reappropriation" ofthe European tradition would occur by way of a "step
back out of that track" and an opening toward an "other great beginning"-
140
PH.ACTISING PH!LOSOPHY AS A MATIER OF LIFE AND DEATH
and that at this point in its history European thinking requires the injection
of ideas from an other so urce. 1
Let us simply overlook the exclusivity suggested by the phrase "thinking
from the same descent and provenance" in favor of Heidegger's earlier talk
of the desirability of a bilateral approach involving East-Asian thought. 2
This would amount to suggesting that contemporary thinking might be trans-
formed by way of a reappropriation and recuperation of neglected features of
the Western tradition that resonate with East-Asian thinking. What I want to
focus on is the notion of philosophy as practice, but after a preliminary digres-
sion on the relation of philosophical discourse to practice and experience.
Two related questions tend to occur to Western readers when engaging
philosophical texts from the Zen tradition. Is it necessary to have undergone
certain experiences in order fully to understand this philosophy? And, if so, is
it necessary to engage in certain practices in order to have such experiences?
An affirmative answer to both questions has prompted sorne critics to accuse
Zen (and especially Kyoto-school) philosophy of complicity with Nihonjin-
ron, or of "reverse Orientalism," on the grounds that it is predicated upon
particular, culturally developed practices and experiences. Such criticisms
seem to me misguided, since for one thing non-Japanese are able (in the
United States, at least) to become accredited Zen masters-and there are in
any case numerous Western philosophies that are predicated upon a particu-
lar experiential basis.
I doubt, for example, whether one can understand the clímax ofDiotima's
discourse in Plato's Symposium, in which the lover is finally granted the expe-
rience of "contemplating the vast ocean of Beauty," without having had
sorne experience to which these words might plausibly be applied. Or what
Plotinus writes about the One, without having undertaken in sorne measure
"the flight of the alone to the alone." Or the moment as what Kierkegaard
1 On the necessity for a Schritt zurück, see Heidegger's open letter of 1963 to Kojima Take-
hiko: "The step back does not mean a flight of thinking into bygone ages, and least of all a rean-
imation of the beginnings of Western philosophy .... The step back is rather the step out of the
track in which the progress and regress of Bestellen take place" (BUCHNER 1989, p. 224). In the
1959 essay "Holderlins Erde und Himmel" he writes ofthe "great beginning" ofWestern thought
as follows: "Ir is opening itself to the few other great beginnings that belong with their Own to
the Same of the beginning of the infinite relationship, in which the earth is included" (HEIDEG-
GER 1958-60, p. 36).
2
These are discussed in the section "Ambivalence over East-West Dialogue" ofmy essay, "Ris-
ing Sun over Black Forest" (PARKES 1996).
141
 PARKEs
calls "an atom of eternity within time" without having enjoyed sorne extra-
ordinary temporal experience. Or Heidegger's discussion of das Nichts with-
out having undergone the experience of Angst. In all of these cases, it seems that
sorne special kind of experience is necessary-or an extremely robust imagi-
nation at the very Ieast-for a full appreciation of the relevant philosophical
ideas. In the case of Heideggerian Angst, there is nothing one can do to
induce the experience (except be "open" to it); but nearer the beginnings of
the Western tradition there is a close association between philosophical think-
ing and practices designed to induce a transformation of one's experience.
While such practices are hardly to be found any more in contemporary phi-
Iosophy in the West, mainly as a result of its over-professionalization, they
were formerly a key feature of a number of currents in the ancient philo-
sophical tradition-especially in the form of what the French philosopher
Pierre Hadot has called exercices spirituels (see HADoT 1995). In the spirit of
Hadot's investigations, I should like to draw attention to sorne figures in
early Western philosophy (between the third century BCE and the second CE)
whose ideas and practices seem interestingly comparable with Zen thought.
To develop such comparisons further, delineating the relevant parallels and
divergences, would be an illuminating exercise that would enhance our
understanding ofboth sides. But my immediate, more practica! aim is to rec-
ommend to Western thinkers interested in Zen (as well asto philosophers in
Japan suffering from a surfeit of speculative or analytical philosophy) that
they consider the practices that were associated with philosophy in the Hei-
Ienistic period.
In view of the influence on the Zen tradition of the two great classics of
Daoism, the Laozi and Zhuangzi, an in-depth comparison oftheir ideas with
those of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, and of Heraclitus in particular, would
be an illuminating way to set the stage . But it is when Greek philosophy
becomes established in Athens through the activity of Socrates that the
emphasis shifts to spoken philosophical discourse as a vital engagement
between two or more persons, and away from the writing of philosophical
poems or prose pieces.
Socrates shares with Buddhist teachers a concern with "seeing into one's
own nature" and with the right conduct that flows from that insight. In the
Apology, he defines his "practice of philosophy" in quite existentialist terms:
"trying to persuade [ every Athenian citizen] to concern himself Iess about
what he has than about what he is, so that he may make himself as good and
142
PRACTISING PHILOSOPHY AS A MATIER OF LIFE AND DEATH
as reasonable as possible" (Apology, 36b ). (It would be enlightening in this
context to inquire into the difference between the "reason" advocated by
Socrates and the virtue of "wisdom" in the Buddhist tradition-an inquiry
that would surely benefit from a study ofNishitani's essay "Hannya to risei"
A~;€'ft~t1 [Prajña and reason] (1979). In spite of Soc;rates' !ove of dialogue,
he appreciates the limits of language and emphasizes that a full understand-
ing of ideas must be lived out. According to Xenophon, he once said: "If I
don't reveal my views on justice in words, I do so by my conduct''
(Xenophon, Memorabilia, 4.4.10).
It is nevertheless clear, in spite of Socrates' mania for cross-questioning
pretentious pedestrians on the streets of Athens, that the ecstatic trances for
which he was famous served the purpose of balancing this practice with con-
templation. Further, his technique of Ieading his interlocutor along a path of
thinking, through relentless questioning, to the point of complete aporía, in
which the mind has been cleared of all prejudices and unexamined presup-
positions, surely has features in common with the "great doubt" ( daigi ::k~)
that Zen masters like Hakuin consider a sine qua non of "seeing into one's
own nature." Socrates wrote nothing because he had no wisdom to teach: his
primary concern was to help his fellow human beings to a deeper and more
direct understanding of their own Jives.
When we turn to the philosophical schools that arose in Athens during the
third century BCE and flourished there and in Rome over the subsequent few
centuries, we find the Stoics and Epicureans of greatest relevance to the topic
of practice. We face a twofold difficulty here, however, in that a Iarge num
ber of the original texts have been lost-and that these were in any case
philosophies that were practised primarily in oral discourse, and only secon-
darily committed to writing (often by scribes, or disciples of the founder, and
for the use of members of the school rather than for a general audience ). As
Pierre Hadot has emphasized, in those days to philosophize was "to choose
a school and convert to its way oflife," and such a conversion ( metanoia) was
usually effected by practising the "spiritual exercises" that had been devel-
oped by the master(s) of the school (HADOT 1995, p. 60). These exercises
were primarily intellectual and imaginative, and tended to lack the physical or
somatic features that distinguish Buddhist meditation practices-which
seems to be the major difference between practice in the two traditions.
The Stoics and Epicureans are in accord with Buddhist views in holding
that a major source of human suffering is the desire to acquire or keep pos
143
 PARKES
sessions that one may lose or fail to obtain in the first place. They also ascribe
"unnecessary desires" and "partial value judgments" to social conventions ,
and advocate getting rid of them in order to attain a Iess anthropocentric
standpoint. The result is that the world appears astonishingly new-as evi-
denced by these words ofSeneca: "I contemplare wisdom with the same stu-
pefaction with which, on other occasions, I look at the world-this world
that I quite often feel I am seeing for the first time [ tamquam spectator
novus]" (Seneca, Letter to Lucilius, 24.6 ). Many exercises in the Stoic and
Epicurean traditions aim at a transformation of experience by broadening the
human perspective on the world, which is conditioned by our desires, to a
"natural" perspective that situates every event within the context of universal
phusis. The practice of this kind of "physics" is the aim of Seneca's admoni-
tion concerning "plunging oneself into the world (toti se inserens mundo)"
(Seneca, Letter to Lucilius, 46.6).
Although such plunging may sound more like what Dogen would call
"delusion" than "realization" ("carrying ourselves forward and experiencing
the myriad things" rather than "Ietting the myriad things come to us and
experience themselves"), the transformations of experience attained through
the "vigilant tension" of the Stoics and the "total exertion" (gujin ~~)
advocated by Dogen may be fruitfully compared (Dogen, Shiibiigenzii, "Genjo
koan" :iji_JlX:i~~). It would be illuminating to investigare the correspondences
between the Stoic understanding of the human being's place in the cosmos
and Dogen's understanding ofthe totality ofbeing as "Buddha-nature."
The two main Hellenistic schools part company, however, when the Stoics
emphasize universal reason, or divine providence, in contrast to the Epicureans'
denial of teleology. Through contemplation of the Stoic logos that governs
the unfolding of cosmic processes, we are able to transcend the limits of our
individuality to realize our participation in the reason-animated cosmos.
Epictetus, for exampie, speaks of "the divine government of things," and rec-
ommends to his pupils that they "keep their will in harmony with it."
Through practising such a discipline they will "Iearn to desire that everything
happen just the way it does happen" (Epictetus, Discourses, 1.12.8, 15, 17).
And yet just as Dogen emphasizes that sitting zazen is simply an expression
of our true nature, so the Stoics regard the contemplation of nature as a nat-
ural development of natural processes. According to Epictetus,
The human being should begin where the nonrational animals do
and end where nature has ended in our case ... , [namely] at studying
144
PRACTISING PHILOSOPHY AS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
and attending to things, and a way of life in harmony with nature.
See to it then that you do not die without having studied these.
(Epictetus, Discourses, 1.6.22)
The indifferentia cultivated by the Stoics is Iess an attitude of detachment
from the world (though, like the Buddhists, the Stoics recommend avoiding
attachment to emotions and passions) than a refusal to make val u e judgments
about it. For Marcus Aurelius, such abstention affords one a cosmic perspec-
tive that is similar to what the Daoists call "seeing all things in the light of
Heaven [ tian ::R]":
You have the power to strip off the many superfluous things that
are obstacles to you, and that depend entirely upon your value
judgments; you will open up for yourself a vast space by embracing
the whoie universe in your thoughts, by considering unending
eternity. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.32)
Like the Daoists, Aurelius claims that there is no valid distinction to be
made between what is repulsive and what is pieasant, sin ce nature itself makes
no such distinctions (see Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.1.9). In the Medi-
tations, he writes to himself:
Everything comes from above, whether it has originated immedi-
ately in that common directing principie, or whether it is a neces-
sary consequence thereof. Thus, the gaping jaws of a lion, poison,
and all kinds of unpieasant things, like thorns and mud, are by-
products of those venerable, beautiful things on high. Don't imagine,
therefore, that these unpleasant things are alien to that principie
you venerate, but rather consider that source of all things. (Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, 6.36.2)
The difference between this and the Buddhist view is the emphasis on the
"directing principie" from above, which appears to be a hangover from the
Platonic tradition with its notion of a transcendent source of value. But if
everything is to be venerated as "coming from above," then it seems that the
naturalism of Aurelius's Stoic philosophy exposes it to charges of ethical qui-
etism, of the kind that are often Ieveled at Daoism and Zen-and at any
philosophies that advocate going beyond value judgments of good and bad.
If one renounces recourse to a transcendent norm of what is good or right
for human beings to do, where does one find grounds for intervening in
145
 PARKEs
natural processes? Por if we adopt a nonanthropocentric perspective from
which what is important is "the flourishing of the whole" (rather than the
flourishing of human beings alone), how is such flourishing to be assessed?
As I have suggested elsewhere, a great contribution of the East Asian philoso-
phies is their insistence on considering the particular, concrete situation in
the context of the relevant organized totality-an emphasis that we find also
in Stoic philosophy (see PARKEs 1997).
What is interesting in Aurelius, however, is his move away from idealistic
aesthetics toward a more realist, immanental stance that is similar to the Zen
standpoint.
In the case of very ripe olives, it is precise! y their proximity to decay
that adds to them a certain beauty. The same is true ... with the
foam spuming from the mouths of wild pigs, and many other such
things: ifwe look at them in isolation, they are far from being beau-
tiful. Nevertheless, because they are incidental by-products of nat-
ural processes, they add to the beauty of these processes.
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.3.2)
Although it is rare for a Western philosopher to find beauty in "proximity to
decay," it is relatively common in transience-based philosophies in the East-
Asian traditions, which give rise to worldviews tinged by mono no aware. To
appreciate the aesthetic qualities of "foam spuming from the mouths of wild
pigs" as a "natural process" requires the kind of broadening of perspective
that Dogen encourages when he emphasizes Buddha-nature (in which the
element of sho 11 would resonate with the "birth-growth-decay" connota-
tions of the Latin natura) as "whole-being" (shitsu-u ~1f ), as an organized
totality (Dogen, Shobogenzo, "Bussho" 11.11).
Ifwe turn to the Epicureans, we are struck at once by the practical-therapeu-
tic aspects of their thinking. Epicurus is concerned, as the Buddha was a few
centuries before him, with developing a therapeutic psychology: "We must con-
cern ourselves with the healing of our own lives." Through banishing need-
less worries and fears, and satisfYing only the necessary desires, one can return
to the simple joy of existing. Just as the Daoists (and many Zen thinkers)
advocate following tian dao :J¿jg, or the way of nature, so Epicurus advises:
"We must not resist nature but o bey her. We o bey her if we satisfY the nec-
essary desires and also those bodily desires that do not harm us." This way of
life is notas difficult as it might seem, since "blessed nature ... has made what
is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary" (Epicurus,
146
PRACTISING PHILOSOPHY AS A MATIER OF LIFE AND DEATH
"Vatican Fragments" 64, 21; fragment 469 [Usener]).
Physics-in the sense of perceiving the world as phusis, that incessant move-
ment ofbirth and growth by which things manifest themselves (what Spinoza
will cal! natura naturans)-is a key feature of Epicurean spiritual practice.
But the Epicureans differ from the Stoics in seeing no rational directing force
in the universe. As Lucretius puts it: "Nature is revealed as rid of haughty
overlords, as the free autonomous agent of everything, without the partici-
pation of the gods" (Lucretius, De rerum natura, 2.1100). The' Epicureans
take delight in constant contemplation of the genesis of worlds in the infinite
void, the results of which Lucretius describes in the most vivid terms:
The walls of the world open out, and I see activity going on
throughout the whole void .... At these things sorne godlike delight
seizes me and a shuddering of awe, to think that nature is thus
made so clear and manifest, laid open and unveiled in every part.
(Lucretius, De rerum natura, 3.16-17, 28-30)
Because of the radically contingent nature of the Epicurean universe, medi-
tation cultivates an appreciation of the "once-only" character of existence, so
that one comes to celebrate each moment as a unique miracle. The over-
whelming emotion is thus one of gratitude: through contemplation, writes
Epicurus, "one cultivares profound gratitude to nature for granting us the
gift of life" (Epicurus, "Vatican Fragments" 19, 69, 75). The Epicurean
emphasis on friendship and community brings their way of life closer to the
Buddhist ideal of sangha than is the case with more individualistic philoso-
phies: "Meditate on these things and things like them," Epicurus recom-
mends, "by day and by night, alone or with a like-minded friend ... and you
shalllive like a god among men" (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 135b ).
There is an interesting sense in which the Stoics and Epicureans share with
the Zen tradition an appreciation of attaining a "bird's-eye view" of things,
although an examination of this image may reveal significant differences in
their broader philosophical views. In the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions,
the flight of the soul often denotes a complete transcendence of the body and
al! earthly things. But the Stoics tend to employ the image of flight more as
a means of gaining perspective on what is "human, aH-too-human." In the
words of Seneca,
The soul takes flight and penetrares the recesses of nature .... It can-
not despise riches before it has been all around the world, and casting
147
 PARKEs
a contemptuous glance at the narrow globe of the earth from
above, says to itself "How ridiculous are the boundaries of m en!"
(Seneca, Natural Questions, I, preface 7-9)
Marcus Aurelius concurs in the advantages of height when contemplating
human existence:
Look upon earthly things below as if from sorne vantage point
above them .... Look from above at the spectacle of myriad herds,
myriad rites, and manifold journeyings in storm and calm; diversi-
ties of creatures that are being born, coming together, passing
away. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.47; 9.30)
In discussing Nietzsche's ideal of being "free as a bird" ( vogel.frei), Nishitani
draws attention to the importance of "the way of the bird" in the Zen tradi-
tion: "A hidden bird sings volubly and flies out of the clouds into the distan ce
of mountain peak u pon mountain peak. " 3 The image of the bird is distinctly
different from that of the soul in flight: although a bird soars above the earth
it is nevertheless an animal subject to gravity; it is unable to maintain the
bird's-eye view indefinitely, and must return to earth occasionally for suste-
nance and rest. The Platonic soul, by contrast, with its heritage from the
Orphic and Pythagorean traditions, is not at home in the body and comes
from a "higher source" to which it longs to return by severing all connections
with the earth.
Tanabe Hajime represents a widespread view when he characterizes the
main difference between "Western" and "Eastern" philosophy by saying that,
whereas the former is concerned mostly with being and life, the latter is
focused more on nothingness and death (TANABE 1959, 1964). As a general-
ization this works fairly well, but there is a strain of thinking about death in
the Western tradition (one that passes through Stoic and Epicurean philoso-
phy) that has significant resonances with the Zen understanding of death. In
fact the East Asian and Western traditions appear to start out with similar
conceptions of the interdependence of life and death, if one compares, for
example, the ideas of Heraclitus and Zhuangzi. 4 The divergence occurs with
Nishitani Keiji, with reference to Dozan (Keitoku dentoroku Jll.:i!JJ~!Hii<, T. 51, no. 2076) and
3
Daitogoroku 7;::/i~lH!it (T. 81, no. 2566), in NISHITANI 1990 (p. 92).
4
Zhuangzi: uSimultaneously with being alive one dies"; "recognize death and life as a single
strand"; udeath and life ha ve the constancy of morning and evening" (chapters 2, 5, 6 ). Heraclei-
148
PRACTISING PHILOSOPHY AS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Socrates and Plato. While Socrates' famous characterization of the philo-
sophical enterprise as "practising dying" can be understood as encouraging a
separation of soul from body by dying to one's individuality and passions, the
Platonic tradition has tended to take it more as a dying away from the world
of the senses in order to be reborn in the intelligible realm. But with the Epi-
cureans' reaction against Platonism comes a denial of transcendence, and
with ita different understanding of death.
Although Epicurus famously observed that "while we exist, death is not
present, and when death is present, we no longer exist," his overall attitude
is informed by a distinctly existential sensibility. "Against other things," he
writes, "it is possible to gain security. But when it comes to death, we human
beings alllive in an unwalled city." (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, 125; "Vat-
ican Fragments" 31 ). The poet Horace expresses a quintessentially Epicure-
an sentiment when he writes, "Persuade yourself that every new day that
dawns will be your last one. And then you will receive each unhoped for hour
with gratitude" (Horace, Letters, 1.4.13). Insofar as the Epicureans under-
stand the universe as radically contingent, their appreciation of the finite
nature of existence focuses on the instant, which, in miraculously succeeding
the preceding one, assumes infinite value. So, for mortals living in an
unwalled city, totally exposed to a world full of accidents, the end can come
not just any day or hour, but at any moment. The Stoic thinking of Marcus
Aurelius coincides with the Epicureans on this point: "Let your every deed
and word and thought be those of one who might depart from this life this
very instant" (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1).
Such an attitude has affinities with Zen, and especially with the thought of
Dogen, who emphasizes that "life arises and perishes instantaneously from
moment to moment [setsuna shometsu ~!J;JJMí~]." The rising and falling of
the breath and the arising and subsiding of thoughts-a primary focus of
beginning practice in zazen-are mimetic of the continua! birth and death
that constitutes existence. Birth-and-death (shoji !:t9E) is thus not something
that forms the frame for human life but rather constitutes its very core.
There is birth in death, and there is death in birth .... This is not so
beca use yo u make it so, but beca use Dharma [ cosmic law] is like
tus: "The same: living and dead, and the waking and the sleeping, and young and old. For these
transposed are those, and those transposed again are these" (Diels, fragment 88; see also fragments
21, 36, 48, 62).
149

PAR.KES
this .... There is birth-and-death in each moment ofthis life ofbirth-
and-death.. .. Birth does not obstruct death, death does not
obstruct birth. (Dogen, Shobogenzo, "Yuibutsu-yobutsu" JlfHLJHL,
"Shinjingakudo" !f .e,,~~ )5
The idea that death not only does not hinder birth but vivifies life and makes
it fully vital recurs frequently in the Zen tradition, and especially forcefully in
a practica! type like Suzuki Shozan. Witness his famous exhortations to
"rouse death energy [shiki 9E%:]" and concentrate on the character shi 9E
(death ): "Make the one graph death master in your heart, observing it and
letting go of everything else" (BRAVERMAN 1994, pp. 30, 61). This is remi-
niscent ofthe Stoics, for whom the full and constant awareness of death ban-
ishes unessentials, so as to allow one to live life genuinely. As Epictetus
exhorts his students: "Keep befare your eyes every day death and exile, and
then you will never have any abject thought or excessive desire" (Epictetus,
Manual, 21 ). The Epicureans similarly appear to put into practice Shozan's
directive to "live having let go of life," insofar as their detachment still allows
them to live in the world rather than exist in a state of transcendence.
Shozan's focus on death is taken up by Hakuin, who similarly recommends
"investigating the word shi" and undergoing the "great death" ( daishi *-9E)
as a way to experience "the decisive and ultimate great joy" (YAMPOLSKY
1971, pp . 135, 219). "Seeing into one's own nature" for Hakuin involves
being prepared to "let go one's hold when hanging from a sheer precipice,
to die and return again to life."
The most remarkable parallels to this way of life are to be found in a
thinker in whom Stoic and Epicurean ideas are powerfully synthesized:
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) . Justas Dogen emphasizes the proper
understanding of birth-and-death, so Montaigne has "the voice of nature"
impress u pon his reader: "Death is the condition of your creation, it is a part
ofyou .... This being ofyours that you enjoy is equally divided between death
and life .... You are in death while you are in life .. .during life you are dying"
(FRAME 1958, 1 :20). And as Shozan speaks of "learning death" (shi o narau
9E :a->g¡ -7 ), so Montaigne advocates cultivating a familiarity with it: "Let us rid
death of its strangeness, come to know it, get used to it. Let us have nothing
on our minds as often as death .... Knowing how to die frees us from all sub-
S For a fuller comparison of Dogen, Shozan, Hakuin, and Nishitani with Montaigne, Nietz-
sche, and Heidegger on the topic of death , see PARKES 1998.
150
PRACTISING PHILOSOPHY AS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
jection and constraint." He appears, finally, to be a consummate executor of
the movement described by Hakuin in which one dies and returns to life: "I
unbind myself on all sides .... Never did a man prepare to leave the world
more utterly and completely, nor detach himself from it more universally,
than I propase to do." But the remarkable effect of such detachment-as
practised by one for whom "death mingles and fuses with our lives through-
out"-is that he finds himself come back fully to life: "When I dance, I
dance," he says; "when I sleep, I sleep" (Montaigne, Essays, 3:13).
Indeed, when it comes to philosophy as a matter of life and death, nobody
in the Western tradition has put it more succinctly than Montaigne, who
writes, simply: "It is all over."
- Well, perhaps not quite over, yet, without a cursory summing up.
It seems to me that W estern thinkers stand to gain a better understanding
of Zen thought if we approach it from a broad historical base in our own
philosophical tradition. Part of such a base is to be found in figures in the
Epicurean and Stoic traditions, to whom little attention has been paid in
comparative approaches to Zen. For these thinkers philosophy consists not
only in ideas about the world and the human being's place in it, but also in
the practice of a way of life, and in the transformation of one's life by means
of"spiritual exercises" that are passed clown from master to disciple. As in the
Zen tradition, participation in the natural world is a major factor in this trans-
formation, even though rationalist tendencies from the Platonic tradition
sometimes pull the Stoics away in the direction of a philosophy of transcen-
dence .
When it comes to the philosophy of death that goes along with the phi-
losophy of life, these tendencies result in an overemphasis on detachment,
such that the awareness of death grants serenity but impedes the living of life
to its fullest. Just as a reappropriation of Stoic and Epicurean philosophical
practices would help to inject sorne reallife into current Western philosophy,
attention to Zen's focus on the physical and somatic aspects of practice might
help us acquire the difficult knack of returning to our real lives after having
let go of them.
151
 PRACTISING P HILOSOPHY AS A MATTER. OF LIFE AND DEATH
PARKEs

1998 Death and detachment: Montaigne, Zen, Heidegger, and the Rest.
References cited
In Philosophy and Death, ed. Jeff Malpas. London: Routledge.
BRAVERMAN, Arthur, ed. and trans. TANABE Hajime EB:ill:JÍ;
1994 Warrior ofZen. New York: Kodansha Internacional. 1959 Todesdialektik. In Martin Heidegger zum siebzigsten Geburtstag:
BuCHNER, Hartrnut, ed. Festschrift, pp. 93-133. Pfullingen: Neske.
1989 ]apan und Heidegger. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke. 1964 Sei no sonzaigaku ka shi no benshó ka ~O):;ff:;(f$1.P9EOYtr~iEI.P
[ Ontology of life or dialectics of death?]. Tanabe Haji me zenshu
FRAME, Donald EB:ill:JÍ;~~ [The complete works of Tanabe Hajime] 13:525-80.
1958 The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Stanford: Stanford University
Tokyo: Chikuma Shobó.
Press.
YAMPOLSKY, Philip B., trans.
HADoT, Pierre 1971 The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings. New York: Columbia U ni-
1995 Philosophy as a Way of LiJe: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Fou-
versity Press.
cault. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
HEIDEGGER, Martín
1958 The Question ofBeing. Trans. William Klubak and Jean T. Wilde. New
York: Twayne.
1958-60 Holderlins Erde und Himmel. Hiilderlin-]ahrbuch 11: 17-39.
1967a Zur Seinsfrage. In Wegmarken. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
1967b Vortriige und Aufsiitze. Pfullingen: Neske.
1977 Science and reflection. In The Question concerning Technology and
Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt, 155-82. New York: Harper and
Row.
1988 Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten. In Antwort: Martin Heidegger
im Gespriich, ed. G. Neske, 81-144. Pfullingen: Neske. (reprint of
interview in Der Spiegel30/23 [May 1976])
NISHITANI Keiji ~:c¡.§?fi
1982 Religion and Nothingness. Translated by Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
1990 The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. Translation of Nihirizumu .::..~:: 1) ;(L.
[Nihilism] (Nishitani Keiji chosakushu ~:c¡.§?5:!1'F~ 8. Tokyo: Sóbun-
sha, 1986) by Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara. Albany: SUNY Press.
PARKES, Graham
1996 Rising sun over Black Forest. In Heidegger)s Hidden Sources: East-
Asian Influenceson His Work, ed. Reinhard May, pp. 79-117. London:
Routledge.
1997 Voices of mountains, trees, and rivers: Kükai, Dógen, and a deeper
ecology. In Buddhism and Ecology, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and Dun-
can Williams, pp. 111-28. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

153
152
 Gyakutaio and Gyakuen
Nishida's Philosophy, Nishitani's Philosophy, and Zen

HORIO TSUTOMU

a provisional attempt to clarifY sorne of

T HE PRESENT PAPER REPRESENTS
the defining characteristics of the respective philosophies of Nishida
Kitaro Wffi~?H~ and Nishitani Keiji "@~~m. A full consideration of this
matter would, of course, require a thorough study of the thought systems of
both Nishida and Nishitani, but in the present essay I would like approach
the problem primarily from the standpoint of Nishitani, examining how he
himself interpreted the generacional and historical differences between him
and his teacher and how he situated his thought within that framework. I will
begin with a brief consideration of severa! points of difference between the
two thinkers respective systems of thought.

Zen and the Philosophies of Nishida and Nishitani

As the philosophies of both Nishida and Nishitani are fundamentally related

to Zen Buddhism, any exploration of the two systems must take this factor
into account. It is well known that before Nishida formulated his personal
philosophical standpoint of "pure experience" (junsui keiken *il!;j<{':*'f~) he
underwent many years of Zen training, beginning at the age of twenty-seven.
In August 1903, when he was thirty-three, he had his first experience of Zen
awakening while studying under Koshü Sotaku !JHI·I*i* (1840-1907), master
of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. The direction that this training was leading him in,
however, appears to have been toward a career not in religion but in philos-
ophy. Por example, in September 1906, three years after his initial experience
of self-awakening ( kensho ~ti) and at about the time he was completing
"Nishida-shi jitsuzairon oyobi rinrigaku" "@fflf\:: ~1f~~&1üii~*, the thesis
that formed the basis of his first book, Zen no kenkyü 'a O):¡jJf~ [A study of the

155
 HORIO
good]/ Nishida wrote the following letter to D. T. Suzuki, then residing in
the United States: "It is my intention to continua! religious training until the
end of my life, but I feel that, as far as my work is concerned, acadernics is
the most appropriate field. What do you think?" And it was in fact during this
period that Nishida began the philosophical studies that established his rep-
utation. Thus Nishida's career as a thinker may be characterized as one that
moved in the direction of "from Zen to philosophy."
Nishitani, while fully aware of the nature of his teacher's religious training,
had a quite different experience of the tie between philosophy and Zen. Por
Nishitani, "the study of Western philosophy led to the practice of Zen"
(NISHITANI 1988, p. 29). Nishitani's approach to Zen was, in other words,
"from philosophy to Zen," the precise opposite of that of his teacher. Let me
here summarize Nishitani's early encounter with Zen, a subject I treat at
greater length in Zen Buddhism Today 14 (HORIO 1997).
Nishitani early approach to philosophy was rather radical in nature, begin-
ning with an investigation of fundamental evil or "original sin" ( kongen aku
f~imí~) through the thought of the German Idealist philosophers, particular-
ly Schelling, and proceeding toa study ofWestern mystics like Plotinus and
Meister Eckhart. Yet with the deepening of his studies he carne to sense "a
great voidness inside myself," as though "my feet were not solidly on the
ground" and "something like a thin veil [separated the soles ofJ my feet from
the surface of the earth."
This feeling led to a fundamental distrust of the very standpoint of philos-
ophy. The vita contemplativa of Aristotle and and the Denken des Denkens of
Hegel, though representing the highest expressions of the philosophical path,
seemed to Nishitani to be based on theoria, in which the philosopher posi-
tions himself a step back from the direct, living reality of things and observes
them from an abstraer, ivory-tower realm. He doubted whether any "reality"
perceived in such a manner could be anything but a sham construct. This fun-
damental sense of Skepsis toward the entire philosophical endeavor led Nishi-
tani to the practice of Zen, in which he "set speculation aside for a while and
just sat." This was in 19 36, when he was thirty-six years old.
1
Hereafter abbreviated as ZK. Translated into English as An Inqttiry into the Good (hereafter
IG), by Masao Abe and Christopher Ives (NISHIDA 1990).
156
GYAKUTAIO AND GYAKUEN
((Pure Experience» and the ((Realization of Bottomlessness))
The second point of difference between Nishida's and Nishitani's respective
systems of thought involves the fundamental nature of the self-awareness out
of which they emerged.
In that the philosophies of both Nishida and Nishitani are formulated on
the basis of a fundamental breaking-through of the standpoint of Descartes's
naturale rationis lumens-a breakthrough rooted in the practice of Zen-
they may be characterized as "mediated" systems of thought. Nishitani often
characterizes such systems as "existencial" in nature, as they come into con-
tact with a living reality far more direct than that of the ego. In that sense
these forms of speculation possess the nature of praxis.
However, the philosophical insights underlying the respective systems are
quite different. Nishida's philosophy was informed by the realization that "it
is not that experience exists because there is an individual, but that an indi-
vidual exists because there is experience. I thüs arrived at the idea that expe-
rience is more fundamental than individual differences" (NISHIDA 1979, p. 4;
1990, p. xxx). Nishida's realization was, in short, that of"pure experience."
Nishitani's realization, in contrast, was that of the "bottomless" (nR.J!f) nature
of things, which he explains as follows:
At its most fundamental ground the notion that "I am" is some-
thing utterly without foundation. At the very ground of our life
there is absolutely nothing to set our feet upon. Indeed, life is life
precise!y beca use it stands where there is no-thing to stand upon."
(NKC 1:4)
In a certain sense, Nishitani's "realization ofbottomlessness" grew out of the
same soil that Nishida's "realization of pure experience" did, and both
philosophers may be seen (in a manner of speaking) to have "awakened from
the same bed." Nishitani, for example, says of his sense that his "feet were
not solidly on the ground":
I had, of course, read Professor Nishida's Zen no kenkyü, so in a
manner of speaking I knew what "direct experience" referred to.
Nevertheless, I hadn't directly understood the meaning of direct
experience. (NISHITANI and YAGI 1989, p. 60)
Nevertheless, the difference between Nishida's "pure experience" and Nishi-
tani's "bottomlessness" was not merely terminological, but involved the very
157
 HORIO
nature of their respective philosophical standpoints. Drawing a hint from the
"waves and water" simile so often encountered in Mahayana thought/ we
might say that Nishida's philosophical awareness was like the waves which
arise from the bottomless depths, while Nishitani's philosophical awareness
was like the bottomless depths upon which the waves arise. This dissimilarity
in character may be related in part to the respective characters of the two
philosophers' Zen training and insight, but I see the fundamental cause as
lying in historically determined distinctions in the way their respective expe-
riences manifested themselves in self-awareness.
Gyakutaio and Gyakuen
The third difference in the two philosophers' systems of thought relates to
these differing historical factors . In conversarían Nishitani once explained the
historical situation ofNishida in comparison with that ofhis generation using
the metaphor of a sando ~]!, the road leading to a Shinto shrine
In Prof. Nishida's times the road to the shrine led straight to the
sanctuary. In our times, though, the road crumbled befare reach-
ing the sanctuary steps, so we couldn't reach the inner shrine as
people befare us could. At best we had to approach by way of a
roundabout route.
Nishitani had set his feet upon the same path as Nishida, but found that it
could no longer be traveled-neither his existencial problem nor his histori-
cal circumstances permitted it. "The road [had] crumbled befare reaching
the sanctuary steps." This situation itself became a tapie of inquiry for him,
for he was forced to accept as his own existencial dilemma the sense of
nihilism that characterized the historical age in which he lived. The "round-
about route" of which he speaks is the path of "overcoming nihilism through
nihilism," which was to comprise the central theme of his lifelong philo-
sophical and spiritual search. The fact that Nishitani, unlike Nishida, could no
longer walk the road leading straight to the sanctuary meant that he had to
approach it from the back (Hintergrund). Nishitani hinted at this once dur-
2 Seen, for example, in the Tacheng qixinren :kcl!Hªfg~ [Treatise on the awakening offaith in
the Mahayana], where the waves represent thoughts while the water represents the underlying
mind . The simile originates in early Vedanta thought, in which it signifies a relationship that is
simultaneously one of nonduality and nonunity.
158
GYAKUTAIÓ AND GYAK UEN
ing a conversation in which the subject of Nishida's gyakutaio ~ Mr.t· was
being discussed. "In my case it was gyakuen ~~ ," he commented. Let us
examine the respective implications of these two terms .
The termgyakutaio, "inverse correlation," originally comes from the field
of mathematics, where it indica tes the inverse of the correlation a~ b, that
is, a+-- b. In Nishida's philosophy gyakutaio not only retains this original
meaning but also signifies the inverse of the en tire relationship between a and
b (that is, a correlation based on the self-negation ofboth factors) . For exam-
ple, in the case of the correlation "mind is Buddha" (shin soku ze butsu
{-I'!P:iid;Jl; ), we have not only the usual inverse correlation of "Buddha is mind"
but also an inverse correlation that involves both "mind" and "Buddha"
themselves. The realm in which such a relationship obtains might be called
"the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity in which affirmation is
negation."
Nishitani's wordgyakuen, which might be translated "inverse causality," is
originally a Buddhist term indicating a situation in which usual or expected
causal relationships are reversed; it stands in opposition to the term jun)en
)11M~ , or "consonant causality." For example, the situation in which a child (a)
holds memorial services for a parent (b) is one of jun)en (a~b), while the
situation in which a parent holds memorial services for a child is one of
gyakuen (a+-b ). In a rather different sense, it is jun)en when obeying the
teachings of the Buddha leads to entrance into the Buddhist Way; it is
gyakuen when disobeying the teachings of the Buddha leads to en trance into
the Buddhist Way. In the first example the two elements in the a~ b rela-
tionship are simply reversed, while in the second example the entire relation-
ship itself is turned inside out (from one of obedience to one of disobedi-
ence). What the two meanings of gyakuen share is their reversa! of expected
causal relationships.
Thus gyakutaio and gyakuen do not always stand in a relationship of per-
fect contradistinction with regard to background and meaning-content.
When Nishitani identified his path as one characterized by gyakuen rather
than by his teacher Nishida's gyakutaio, he was not drawing a distinction in
meaning-content. What he was pointing to was a difference between the exis-
ten tia! circumstances of Nishida's age (jun )en circumstances that allowed his
teacher to walk straight along the shrine road and up the steps to the inner
sanctuary; that allowed him, in other words, to explain religion through the
logical construct of"inverse correlation") and the existencial circumstances of
159
 HORIO
his own age (gyakuen circumstances that presented him with a shrine road
destroyed by the "death of God" and a host of related philosophical prob-
lems). There was, in a manner of speaking, a basic change in the way that the
relationship between God and humanity was perceived. In Nishida's time the
orthodox religious standpoint still obtained: God was present and could be
approached by way of the traditional "shrine road." By Nishitani's time, how-
ever, God was no longer to be found-the shrine road had crumbled away,
and with it the sense of support that the divine presence had provided.
Nishitani's situation was one in which he had no choice but to descend
into the nihility that had destroyed the road and feel his way along step by
step. This was the "roundabout way" of which Nishitani spoke, and the
"approach from behind" that comprised his philosophical quest.
Nishitani)s View ofthe Place and Signijicance of Nishida)s Philosophy
An in-depth analysis of how Nishitani situated and interpreted the thought
of Nishida would require a detailed examination of how Nishitani's views on
this subject evolved with the progressive development of his own philosoph-
ical system, but this is clearly beyond the scope of the present paper. Thus I
would like to confine myself toa consideration of a few of the more essential
aspects of the problem.
NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY IN WORLD lNTELLECTUAL HISTORY
Nishitani saw the notion of "pure experience"-the starting point of Nishi-
da's philosophy and its ground concept throughout Nishida's career-as
playing an important role in the development of world intellectual history.
The development of modern science compelled the European world to rev-
olutionize the cosmology that had prevailed since medieval times. The philo-
sophical theory of mechanism, with its view that all phenomena can be
explained on the basis of mechanical principies, ushered in a new worldview
in which the universe was no longer "ein Deus visibilis" (Kepler) but a
dynamic, impersonal realm. As clearly seen in the thought of Descartes
(whose influence on mechanism was stronger than that of any other thinker),
with the coming of modernity matters relating to God were relegated to the
province of the individual soul. At the same time the modern "two-world
theory" (Zweiweltentheorie [=i!tW-m ]), which posited the this-worldly realm
of the senses and the other-worldly realm of the intdlect, faced the danger of
160
GYAKUTAIO AND GYAKUEN
collapse owing to the shift of psychology from the pale of philosophy to that
of empirical science and to the rise of psychologism under thinkers like Wil-
helm Max Wundt (1832-1920). Nishitani summarized the nature of the
problem and the solution as he saw it as follows:
The conflict between the standpoints of science and religion spread
to the whole of the interior life (NC 9:104 NK p. 73)
The problem called for a philosophy that would keep its feet firrnly
planted in immediate and pure experience (in the sense described
above) and yet be able to offer new answers to the same funda-
mental questions that the old metaphysics had addressed (NC
9:108 NK p. 77) .... And it seems tome that there were only two
philosophers capable of doing so. One was Bergson ... , the other
was Nishida. (NC 9:110 NK p. 79)
NISHITANI'S CRITIQUE OF NISHIDA'S PHILOSOPHY
Despite Nishitani's perception of the importance of Nishida's thought for
modern philosophy, Nishitani was not unaware that certain problems
remained in Nishida's system. From a relatively early age Nishitani alludes to
the possibility of critiquing Nishida's philosophy from various philosophical
standpoints; of the problems he saw, the following (expressed by Nishitani in
19 36, when Nishida was still alive) may be regarded as the most fundamen-
tal in Nishitani's eyes:
Nishida's philosophy has not yet found a way to assess the impor-
tance of the process dialectic [ of Hegel] and make adequate use of
it even as it goes beyond it. In other words, Nishida's dialectic of
place has not reached the point where it can confront the dialectic
process through a negation-in-affirmation. (NKC 9:202 NK p.
204)
In Nishida's philosophy, that is, there is a clear stress placed on an outlook
characterized by Nishitani in the following words: "A higher stage of reality
becomes a postulare of intellection by which to account for lower stages of
reality; we look at the lower from the higher, as it were" (NKC 9:202; NK p.
204; emphasis mine). This is also reflected in comments like "The funda-
mental mode of reality is ... the self-development of a single entity" (ZK, p. 86
[Iwanami 1979]; IG, p. 57).
161
 Horuo
Of course, we must keep in mind, as Nishitani does, that "in the sense that
philosophy aims at a fundamental grasp of phenomena by delving into ulti-
mate essences, it follows as a matter of course that" the type of viewpoint
which looks "at the lower from the higher" would appear. Nevertheless, "we
must not forget that in so doing we have driven a wedge between the reality
of such lower stages and the postulates of intellection" (NKC 9:202; NK p.
204 ). Nishitani stresses the necessity of the opposite standpoint, in which the
higher is looked at from the lower. The above-mentioned wedge signifies "an
act of resistance, a revolt against perfection"; in order to see the positive
significance of "imperfect things" in general, "we need to conform to their
standpoint and to follow them in their development to the point where they
exhibit the self-contradiction stemming from their nonabsolute absoluteness
and then negate themselves" (NKC 9:202-203; NK p . 205)
Nishitani pursues this problem from a slightly different angle in the course
of a discussion of criticisms ofNishida's philosophy by Tan abe Hajime lE ill5C
(1885-1962), Nishida's successor at Kyoto University. This critique is sig-
nificant in that it was written in 1951, fifteen years after the passage cited
above, when Nishida had passed away and all of bis works were available to
Nishitani. Fundamentally, Nishitani's view of the central weakness of Nishi-
da's philosophical system remained the same:
For Nishida, tradicional philosophy had not broken away from the
standpoint of the conscious ego with its opposition of subject and
object, but continued to use the terms of an object-subject logic
(that is, a logic ofthe grammatical subject), while bis own thinking
begins from a standpoint of radical realism that surpasses the tradi-
tion entirely to establish itself on a logic of place ( that is, a logic of
the grammatical predicate). This is a standpoint in which one
breaks through the conscious ego and thinks about facts by becom-
ing the facts that one is thinking about. It does not merely philos-
ophize, as has been done in the past, but becomes philosophizing. It
practices philosophy from the standpoint of which Nishida says,
"Becoming a thing, think it; becoming a ·thing, do it." (NKC
9:243; NK p. 180)
Yet, Nishitani says,
looked at the other way around, did this insight not at the same
time crea te a problem for Nishida's philosophy? .... For the stand-
162
GYAKUTAIÜ AND GYAKUEN
point of the conscious self, however in verted and removed from the
truth it may be, is still one that the ordinary person falls into quite
easily-not that people deliberately opt for this standpoint, but that
they slide into it unwittingly and hence have a hard time extracting
themselves from it .... One of the great facts of life is that we usually
position ourselves on a standpoint of "discrimination," far from the
true facts of things. The same holds true of our penchant for del u-
sion. (NKC 9:248; NK p. 184-85)
Nishitani points out that, in stressing "a standpoint that requires one not to
stop at philosophizing but to become philosophizing," Nishida
seems to have lost sight of the fact that ordinary people do not
think of things by becoming them, and hence he does not provide
an answer to the questions of precisely how this inversion takes
place and what its essential features are . (NC 9:248; NK p. 185)
Furthermore,
for all its concern with problems of religion, morality, science and
so forth, what significance practicing philosophy has for these prob-
lems and what place it holds among them did not seem to be ques-
tions that Nishida put systematically.... [Nishida's approach, in
which] one engaged in philosophy by identif)ring with philosophiz-
ing, [m ay have] hindered him from philosophizing about philoso-
phy itself. This is particularly apparent in the fact that in taking up
the religious worldview philosophically by way of bis logic of place,
he made no mention of the momentous question of the relation-
ship between religion and philosophy. (NC 9:249; NK p. 186)
The crux ofNishitani's critique concerns the very source ofNishida's philos-
ophy, expressed by Nishida in the famous words of bis preface to Zen no
kenkyu: "I wanted to explain all things on the basis of pure experience as the
sole reality (ZK, p. 4; IG, p. xxx). Nishitani points to a problem fundamen-
tal to this stance: the lack of self-verification (jiko kensho El C'A§UíE) in the
"looking clown from above" perspective of pure experience and in the
"become philosophizing" character of the thought that emerges from it. This
critique, of course, was not restricted to Nishida's philosophical system, but
also involved the issue that, in Nishitani's view, lent Nishida's philosophy its
particular historical relevance for the modern age-that is, the issue of sepa-
ration and conflict between science and religion (or, to express it differently,
163
 HORIO
the issue of nihilism and the overcoming of nihilism through nihilism). Nishi-
da's view of science may be discerned in the following passage.
At the root of scientific knowledge must be an attitude of "becom-
ing a thing, see it; becoming a thing, hear it." There must be
[Dogen's] stance of "all things advancing forward to practice and
confirm the self." In this too, as the self-determination of the
absolute present, we must employ the will of the self in obeying the
will of God. (NKZ 11: 438)
Attractive as this viewpoint may be from an idealistic standpoint, it is not in
accord with the reality of the scientific worldview. The standpoint of modern
science is one of intellectual comprehension (discrimination), not that of, in
Nishida's words, "becoming a thing, think it; becoming a thing, see it." The
problem of nihilism, the rise of which was integrally connected with the
development of modern science, cannot be understood in a fundamental way
through of the type of topos logic Nishida offers in the passage above. Such
an understanding demands a viewpoint that integrates the "from above" and
"from below" perspectives,
NISHITANI'S STANDPOINT AS COMPARED WITH THAT OF NISHIDA
Nishitani's evaluation of the historical significance of Nishida's philosophy
and of the nature of its unresolved problems shaped the development of
Nishitani's own philosophy. Nishitani's evaluation ofhis teacher's philosophy
vis-a-vis his own may be discerned in Nishitani's above-mentioned observa-
tions that, though walking the same shrine road that his teacher had, he was
forced to approach the inner sanctuary by a roundabout means, and that, as
opposed to Nishida's "inverse correlation," his way had been one of "inverse
causality." The central problem that defined the difference between the two
philosophers' systems of thought was that of nihilism, that is, of the existen-
tia! situation of modern man-a problem that extended to the death of God,
the Eterna! Face. "Overcoming nihilism through nihilism," the task that Nishi-
tani adopted as his philosophical mission, involved the development of a phi-
losophy that would transcend the limitations ofthe "from above" orientation
of the philosophy of pure experience in such a way as to enable the incorpo-
ration also of a "from below" viewpoint. Nishitani's statement that "philos-
ophy must effect a real unity of these two perspectives" may thus be seen as
an expression of how he situated his thought with regard to that of Nishida.
164
GYAKUTAIO AND GYAKUEN
Even when considered only from the rather circumscribed standpoint of
scholastic philosophy, the process of unif)ring the "from above" and "from
below" viewpoints involves three elements. That is, 1) the "upward tran-
scendence" (ue e no tettei L"'-O)fiji!!ll;) that breaks through Nishida's stand-
point of "philosophy from above" must, at the same time, 2) incorpora te a
"downward transcendence" (shita e no tettei T "'-O)fiji!!ll;) that gives fulllife
to Hegel's "philosophy from below," while 3) the integrated standpoint that
results must maintain the attitude of fundamental self-criticism that consti-
tutes the self-identity of all genuine philosophical activity. Near the end ofhis
life Nishitani commented as follows during a lecture at Otani University:
To return to that which is nearest oneself involves, in the case of
intellectual inquiry, an attitude which delves deeper regardless of
how profound a philosophical system has be en attained.... In a
sense, the problems we see on the surface will not reveal their true
nature as problems unless we dig clown much deeper than we have
thus far and consider them in a more fundamental way.
The above-mentioned necessity to unif)r the "from above" and "from
below" viewpoints becomes an explicit theme in Nishitani's philosophy only
in the philosopher's later years, that is, from the time of the publication of
Shükyo to wa nanika *~Xci;t1llf;Q> [What is religion?] 3 in 1961, after he had
arrived at a fundamental resolution to the problem of "overcoming nihilism
through nihilism" via his realization of the "standpoint of Jünyatii" ( kü no
tachiba ~O) .rO~). There is always a cause underlying the inner need that dri-
ves someone like Nishitani to take on a task like this unification; the measure
of how thoroughly the inner need has been met by the accomplishment of
the task is the degree to which this underlying cause has been resolved. In
this regard Nishitani's late essays "Hannya to risei" M~:Bc.Ellltl: [Priijña and
reason] (1979) and "Kü to soku" ~ci!P [ Sünyatii and nonduality] ( 1982) are
of particular interest, in that they comprise a thoroughgoing self-examination
and verification of the "standpoint of sünyatii." I have discussed the place of
these two essays in Nishitani's philosophy of sünyatii in the last issue of Zen
Buddhism Today (Horuo 1997), so here I will restrict myselfto a considera-
tion of their significance for situating the philosophy of Nishitani vis-a-vis
that of Nishida.
3
Translated into English as Religion and Nothingness by Jan Van Bragt (NISHITANI 1982).
165
 HORIO
The more relevant of the two essays in this respect is probably "Hannya to
risei." This thesis, which employs a critique of Hegelian thought in order to
bring about the above-mentioned "self-examination and verification of the
standpoint of sunyatii," demonstrates that Nishitani has overcome the prob-
lems associated with Nishida's "become philosophizing" approach and
attained the standpoint of "philosophizing about philosophy itself." As such
it indicares something of the manner in which the "from above" and "from
below" standpoints are integrated and points to the character of the result-
ing philosophical standpoint.
Hegel's standpoint of dialectical reason overcomes the limitations of reg-
ulative understanding (koseitekigosei ff/í:nX:B-9HH1) and breaks through to the
standpoint of "things in themselves" (zu den Sachen selbst), but for Nishitani
a fundamental problem remains: Hegel's dialectical reason has yet to get rid
of its own conceptual nature in an absolute sense. This means, first, that
Hegel's "unmediated knowledge" ( Sachlichkeit des Wissens)-that is, the
direct understanding of things-in- themselves (die Sache selbst )-remains
incomplete, despite having overcome the intellect to a certain degree; and
second, that the substantive notions of "absolute being" arising from the
intellect's primal drive toward self-affirmation are not thoroughly transcend-
ed, resulting in limited realization of the absolute freedom that can arise only
when the mind has freed itself of all dependence and all restriction through a
process of absolute negation. The transcendence of speculative cognition and
the manifestation of original intelligence can be accomplished only by sub-
jecting the mind to the thoroughgoing dynamic of absolute negation. The
intelligence that emerges as this dynamic and as the self-awareness of this
dynamic-in other words, that emerges as a result of the thorough self-nega-
tion of the self and, simultaneously, of all things-is the priijña wisdom rep-
resenting the dialectic identity of absolute being and absolute nothingness.
In this way Nishitani clarifies the nature of priijña wisdom as that which
appears through the self-examination and verification of the standpoint of
sunyatii. Yet the true "self-examination and verification" begins at this point.
Using two Zen koans to illustrate his point, Nishitani stresses that there must
be a further examination of the very standpoint of priijña. This point, again,
is discussed in greater detail in volume 14 of Zen Buddhism Today, but let me
here summarize the main points.
Nishitani's position is similar to that of Zen, which does not recognize as
true satori the understanding of one who has reached the Buddha's state of
166
GYAKUTAIÓ AND GYAKUEN
oneness (the state expressed in Chinese Buddhism as "heaven, earth, and I
have the same root; the myriad things and I are a single body)-Zen com-
pares this to a kind of dream-realm that must be broken through for true
satori to appear. Nishitani stresses that priijña wisdom too remains a dream
of sorts as long as it emerges from a sunyatii that is still at the level of "form
is emptiness, emptiness is form"-that is, from a sunyatii that remains aware
of itself as sunyatii. This standpoint, corresponding to that of someone who
has realized the Buddha's state of unity, must be broken through and the
world of everyday reality recovered or the person will remain in this dream.
What is necessary at this point is the emptying, the thoroughgoing self-nega-
tion, of the very standpoint of sunyatii itself. Only with such a self-negation
can there emerge the true "standpoint of sunyatii," of true priijña wisdom,
or of the true state of "things-in-themselves."
What Nishitani's "self-examination of sunyatii)) reveals to us, then, is that
Nishida's standpoint ofabsolute nothingness (the "from above" way oflook-
ing at things) must pass through an absolute self-negation-as in the Zen call
to "transcend Buddhahood" ( Butsu kojo 1Li0l..t )-befo re it can truly resolve
the problems remaining in Hegel's standpoint of reason and attain a genuine
state of immediacy (the "from below" way of looking at things). In this we
see the workings of the "inverse causality" characteristic of Nishitani the
philosopher, who, though trying to follow the same road as his teacher Nishi-
da, was forced to reach his destination by a roundabout path.
Abbreviations
IG An Inquiry into the Good. NrsHIDA 1990.
NK Nishida Kitaro: Sono hito to shiso l!!HB~?P-f!~--f0)}\.)::.E(!t1l\. Nishitani
Keiji, 1985. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo.
NKC Nishitani Keiji chosakushu ~i:l-§?éi~f'F#! [Nishitani Keiji's collected
works]. 1986-87 (vols 1-13) and 1990-95 (vols 14-26). Tokyo:
Sobunsha.
NKZ Nishida Kitaro zenshu ~rn~?P-f!~~#! [The complete works ofNishida
Kitar6]
167
 HORIO

References cited
NISHIDA Kitaro WEB~~.I'!~
1979 Zen no kenkyü 'i!fO)~Jf~. Revised edition. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
1990 An Inquiry into the Good. English translation of Zen no kenkyü by
Masao Abe and Christopher !ves. New Haven: Yale University Press.
NISHITANI Keiji "@:fr§?á
1982 Religion and Nothingness. Translated by Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
1985 Nishida Kitaro: Sono hito to shiso WEB~~I'l~: -f"O)J\.c.l[!l,~l!.. Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobo.
1991 Nishida Kitaro. English translation of Nishida Kitaro: Sono hito to
shiso by Yamamoto Seisaku and James W. Heisig. Berkeley: Universi-
ty of California Press.
NISHITANI Keiji and YAGI Seiichi J\*~-
1989 Chokusetsu keiken: Nishitani Keiji/Yagi Seiichi iOC~r.f~-W:fr§?á·
J\*~- [Direct experience: A dialogue between Nishitani Keiji and
Yagi Seiichi]. Tokyo: Shunjüsha.
Afterword
THOMAS KlRCHNER
HIS YEAR'S KYOTO ZEN SYMPOSIUM, the fifteenth of these annual gather-
T ings, marked the conclusion of the series held under the auspices of our
long-time sponsor, the Taniguchi Foundation of Osaka, Japan. Looking
back, the seventeen-year period covered by the symposia seems very brief
indeed. Yet, as mentioned in the Mterword of last year's Zen ·Buddhism
Today, the series continued considerably longer than initially planned. When
the series was first conceived by Rev. Hirata Seiko (Chief Abbot ofTenryü-ji
and former president of the Institute for Zen Studies) and the late Prof.
Nishitani Keiji (professor at Kyoto and Otani Universities), plans called for a
ten-meeting series-it was believed that by the end ofthis time the Taniguchi
Foundation, founded by the late industrialist Taniguchi Toyosaburo, would
have reached the end of its resources. As noted in last year's Afterword, "the
Taniguchi Foundation ... never in tended itself to be a permanent organiza-
tion, having been established for the sole purpose of financing the various
symposia envisioned by the founder, Taniguchi Toyosaburo, as internacional
forums for small groups of scholars to gather together for a week of scholarly
presentations, collegial discussion, and informal exchange." It was
Taniguchi's intention to let the Foundation conclude its activities when
resources carne to end.
This has remained one of the organization's guiding principies through-
out its existence; the Foundation's unexpected longevity is attributable large-
ly to the Japanese yen's remarkable strength during the past two decades and
the consequent increase of the Foundation's assets. With the Foundation
now scheduled to conclude its activities in 1999, most of the other symposia
sponsored by the organization will hold one final meeting. The Kyoto Zen
Symposium, however, has decided to mark the occasion not with a meeting
but with the publication of a book of Japanese translations of a number of
the most notable papers presented during the first ten years of the series.
This, it is felt, will ensure the greatest dissemination in Japan of the most

168 169
 K!RCHNER
interesting ideas discussed at the symposia. Work on the volume has been
underway for severa! years, and is scheduled for completion in spring, 1999.
The activities of the Kyoto Zen Symposium over the past seventeen years
have coincided with-and in sorne cases fostered-a number of important
developments in the study ofKyoto-school philosophy, the diverse system of
thought that has always constituted the Symposium 's central so urce of inspi-
ration and direction. Academic interest in the Kyoto school prior to the
l980s was largely confined toa small number of scholars like David A. Dil-
worth and Valdo Viglielmo, who during the l960s and l970s laid important
groundwork for Kyoto-school studies by translating central texts like Nishida's
Zen no kenkyü !fO)liJf~ [A study of the good], Geijutsu to dotoku ~~ic~ie
[Art and morality], and "Bashoteki ronri to shükyóteki sekaikan"
~PJTB9~¡j¡¡J! (: *~á9t!t.W.~ [The logic of topos and the religious worldview].
They also began the work of analysis with severa! articles in journals like Mon-
umenta Nipponica, International Philosophical Quarterly, and Philosophy East
and West.
In 1982, the year before the first Kyoto Zen Symposium, Jan Van Bragt
published Religion and Nothingness, his translation of Nishitani Keiji's mag-
num opus Shükyo to wa nanika *~XcL:J:1iiJ1.P, which in many ways marked the
beginning ofwidespread Western interest in Kyoto-school thought (perhaps
because many scholars, like Bernard Stevens in the present issue, found Nishi-
tani's writings "more accessible to Western ways of thought than those of
Nishida, [and thus] more appealing to the European reader" [p. 2]). Initial
interest was largely in the spiritual aspects of the Kyoto school, but, in con-
cert with developmental trends in the Western philosophical academy, atten-
tion was increasingly directed toward the political implications of the Kyoto
school teachings, and of the pronouncements and activities of the Kyoto
school philosophers themselves. This shift in interests is reflected in the
themes addressed by the Symposium, which in the latter part ofits history has
devoted more attention to the problems of modernity and political account-
ability:
l) 1983 Zen Buddhism: Humanity and Religion in the Contemporary
World
2) 1984 Zen and Mysticism in the Contemporary World
3) 1985 Zen Buddhism: The Significance of Meditation and Samadhi in
the Contemporary World
4) 1985 (August) Zen Buddhism in the Contemporary World-The
170
AFrERWORD
Encounter between Religion and Our Age
5) 1987 Religion and Natural Science in the Contemporary World
6) 1988 Religion and the Human Sciences in the Contemporary World
7) 1989 Nature, Life, and Human Being
8) 1990 Religion and Ethics in the Contemporary World
9) 1992 Religion and Culture in the Contemporary World
lO) 1993 Religion and the Modern World
ll) 1994 Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of Nationalism
12) 1995 Tradition and Change: Religion and Modernity in Japan
13) 1996 Tradition and Change: Tradicional Doctrine in the Modern Age
14) Religion and the Contemporary World in Light of Nishitani Keiji's
Thought
15) Nishida's Philosophy, Nishitani's Philosophy, and Zen
The overall design of the original ten meetings was explained by Prof.
Horio Tsutomu in the Afterword to Zen Buddhism Today lO:
The committee divided this ten-year period into three sections
dealing with various fundamental aspects of the problem of religion
from the perspective of the modern age. The first section, covering
the first three symposia, comprised a critica! examination of the
basic standpoint of religion from the perspective of the present age.
Following the fourth symposium, which was a summing-up of the
first three, the second section (the fifth to seventh symposia) inves-
tiga red the nature and depth of the gulf that separa tes religion and
science. The third section, comprising the eighth and ninth meet-
ings, was an attempt to clarif)r the relation between religion and the
structural aspects ofhuman existence (culture, ethics, etc.).
Continuing with this general framework, the eleventh Kyoto Zen Symposium
examined the increasing criticism ofthe Kyoto school's wartime activities and
discussed charges that Kyoto school thought was fundamentally nationalistic.
The symposium committee hoped that by bringing together the two sides in
the discussion-those scholars interested mainly in the transcendent, spiritual
side of Kyoto philosophy and those concerned primarily with the school's
political ideas-a broader perspective on the totality of the Kyoto school's
activities and contributions could be achieved. It was an ambitious undertak-
ing; the reader may refer to the proceedings, published as the book Rude
Awakenings, to judge the results.
171
 KlRCHNER AFrERWORD

The increased awareness of the poli ti cal implications of religious and philo- PARKES, Graham Professor of Philosophy
sophical thought exerted a certain influence on the subsequent symposiums, U niversi ty of Hawaii
each one of which contained presentations examining issues related to this STEVENS, Bernard Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy
tapie. The twelfth and thirteenth gatherings focused on the response of var- University of Bruxelles, Belgium
ious religious traditions (primarily in Japan) to the challenges of modernity. VAN BRAGT, Jan Prof. Emeritus of the Philosophy of Religion
The fourteenth meeting reexamined Nishitani's legacy and its significance for Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan
the present world, with presentations on his philosophy and political outlook YAGI Seiichi Professor of Theology
and on the potencial contributions of his thought in areas such as enviran- Toin University ofYokohama, Japan
mental studies. This year's symposium broadened the scope of inquiry to
YUSA, Michiko Professor ofJ apanese and East Asian Studies
include Nishida Kitar6, the teacher of Nishitani and in many ways the father
Western Washington University, U.S.A.
of Kyoto-school thought.
VEDA Shizuteru Prof. Emeritus ofthe Philosophy ofReligion
The various questions relating to the Kyoto school are far from resolved,
but if anything the ongoing discussion is a sign of the vitality of Kyoto school Kyoto University, Japan
studies both in Japan and the West. With regard to this as well as the broader Participating as specially invited discussants were:
questions considered over the years the Symposium Committee has striven to
provide-to borrow Nishida's term-a basho (place) for the exploration of all BLUM, Mark Director of Japanese Studies
aspects of whatever issue it is that is being explored. And (as I believe the Florida Atlantic University, U.S.A.
contents of Zen Buddhism Today amply demonstrate) it has succeeded in this, K!RITA Kiyohide Professor of Education
creating an atmosphere conducive to a frank exchange of opinion between Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan
scholars of greatly different viewpoints. The Symposium may be seen as a MINAMOTO Ryoen Professor Emeritus of Japanese Intellectual
legitimare successor to the work ofNishida Kitar6 in its attempt to define the History, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
lines of an alternative, Mahayana-influenced logical framework for examining MATSUMARU Hisao Professor of the Philosophy of Religion
religion, culture, ethics, technology, and many other issues in the contem- Dokky6 University, Tokyo, Japan
pory world. Assoc. Prof. of the Philosophy of Religion
MoRI Tetsuro
The following scholars presented papers at the 1998 Symposium:
Kyoto Sangy6 University, Japan
FUJITA Masakatsu Professor of Japanese Philosophy
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan The daily schedule during the four-day gathering was as follows:
HASE Sh6t6 Professor of the Philosophy of Religion March 9 (Mon.) Paper by Prof. Maraldo; discussion
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Papers by Prof. Jacinto, Prof. Yusa, Prof. Fujita,
March lO (Tues.)
HORIO Tsutomu Professor of the Philosophy of Religion
and Prof. Horio; discussions
Otani University, Kyoto, Japan
March l l (Wed.) Papers by Prof. Stevens, Prof. Parkes; discussions;
JACINTO, Augustín Z. Professor ofTarascan Culture and
Japanese Philosophy, The Center for the excursion; reception hosted by the Taniguchi
Study of Traditions, El Colegio de Foundation
Michoacán March 12 (Thurs.) Papers by Prof. Hase, Prof. Van Bragt, Prof. Yagi,
MARALDO, John C. Professor of Philosophy and Prof. U eda; discussions
University ofNorth Florida, U.S.A. March 13 (Tues.) General concluding discussion; farewell party

172 173
 KJRCHNER

Committee Members of the Fourteenth Kyoto Zen Symposium

Zen Buddhism Today
HIRATA Seiko (Chairman): Chief Abbot ofTenryü"ji Temple
UEDA Shizuteru (Advisor): Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University
HORIO Tsutomu (General Secretary): Professor at Otani University
Curnulative Listing of Contents
IWAMOTO Akemi (Secretary for Administration): Ph.D. candidate, Kyoto Volurnes 1-15 (1983-1998)
University
KIRCHNER, Thomas (Information Secretary): Nanzan Institute for Religion
Volume 1, 1983
and Culture
Humanity and Religion in the Contemporary World
As mentioned above, the Fifteenth Kyoto Zen Symposium was the final
Seiko HIRATA
meeting to be held under the sponsorship of the Taniguchi Foundation. The Opening Speech [1-2]
members of the Symposium Committee would like to extend their sincerest
Huston SMITH
thanks to the Foundation for its long-continued support, and for its willing-
Spiritual Discipline in Zen and Comparative Perspective [3-19]
ness to let the Symposium develop in a way that permitted the broadest
Keiji NISHITANI
exploration ofwhat were often complex and controversia! subjects. Thanks in
Zen and the Modern World [20-25]
part to this the series has acquired a certain momentum, and has come to
Luis O. GóMEZ
serve a function unfulfilled by any other meeting. The Symposium Commit-
Expectations and Assertions: Perspectives for Growth and
tee, in conjunction with Tenryü-ji, is presently exploring avenues for the pos- Adaptation in Buddhism [26-48]
sible continuation of the gatherings-and of Zen Buddhism TodaJon a
Robert M. GrMELLO
reduced scale.
Historicity and Homelessness: Remarks on the Relationship
Finally, the Symposium Committee would like to express its gratitude to between Buddhism and lts Cultural Contexts [49-5 5]
the many scholars and students who over the years have taken time from their
Noritoshi ARAMAKI
busy schedules to help with the planning, administration, and execution of History and Buddhism in the Creative Ages [56-70]
the meetings. Without their efforts and support these gathering could not
John C. MARALDO
have been held. What Do We Study when We Study Zen? [71-84]
The address of the Kyoto Zen Symposium Committee remains:
Francis H. CooK
Kyoto Seminar for Religious Philosophy What Kind ofReligion Does the Future Require? [85-91]
Tenryü-ji Institute for Philosophy and Religion Jikai FUJIYOSHI
68 Susukinobaba-cho, Ukyo-ku From Japanese Zen to FAS Zen [92-95]
Kyoto-shi, 616-8385 Japan
AFrERWORD [96-99]
TEL (075) 882-8770 FAX (075) 865-8611

Volume 2, 1984
Zen und Mystik in der Gegenwartingen Welt
Zen und Philosophie
Hans WALDENFELS
Zen und Philosophie [ 1-28]
'
174 175
 CUMUIATIVE LISTING CUMULATIVE LISTING

, Eiko KAWAMURA Volume 3, 1985

Zen und Nishidas Philosophie: Dargestellt am Problem der The Significance of Samadhi and Meditation in the Contemporary World
Selbstgewahmis [29-35] Seik6 HIRATA
( 1 Tsutomu Horuo Opening Speech [ 1-2]
Professor Nishitani und der Zen-Buddhismus [ 36-46] Jikai FUJIYOSHI
Graham P ARKES Zen in the Contemporary World [3-14]
Unter dem Augenblick: Der Abgrund der Ewigkeit Arabinda BASU
[47-59] Samadhi in Hindu Spiritual Thought [15-34]
Fumimaro WATANABE
( - Walter STROLZ
Samadhi and Jhana in Early Buddhism [35-47]
Zen-Buddhismus und Christlicher Glaube: Zum Buch von Keiji
Gerhard ÜBERHAMMER
Nishitani Was ist Religion? [60-77]
Jenseits des Erkennens: Zur religiosen Bedeutung des Samadhi
~ Eberhard SCHEIFFELE [48-71]
V Bemerkungen zur deutschen Übersetzung von Keiji Nishitanis Wilhelm HALBFASS
Shükyo towa nanika? [78-90] Hegel on Meditation and Yoga [72-84]
Bernard FAURE
Zen und Mystik Looking back at the Zen Tradition [85-94]
Shizuteru UEDA Padmaruchi MUKHERJEE
Zen-Buddhismus und Meister Eckhart [91-107] The Role ofSamadhi in Patañjala Yoga and Dogen's Zen
[95-107]
Teruhisa TAJIMA
David LOY
Die Grunderfahrung Meister Eckharts: Ihre ontologische und
Mu and Its Implications [108-24]
erkenntnistheoretische Begründung [ 108-26]
Eshin NISHIMURA
Reiner SCHÜRMANN Idealism, Existentialism, and Zen Buddhism [125-30]
Naturgesetz und blosse Natur: Über eine Denkerfahrung bei Ensho KoBAYASHI
dem Meister Eckhart [127-49] On the Significance of Samadhi in Contemporary Life
Alois HMs
[131-40]
Apophatik bei Meister Eckhart und im Zen-Buddhismus Keiji NISHITANI
[150-69] Encountering No-Religion [141-44]
AfTERWORD [145-50]
Till BECKMANN
Der mystische Text "Von Abgeschiedenheit" [170-80]
Seiko HIRATA Volume 4, 1986 '1

Über Jikaku [ 181-84] Zen Buddhism: The Encounter between Religion and Our Age
Keiji NISHITANI Kiyohide KlRITA
"Was bedeutet eigentlich ... ?" [185-87] Zen Buddhism and Society: A Résumé of the Three Previous
Symposia anda Few Propositions [1-14]
AFTERWORD [188-92]

177
176
 CUMUIATIVE LISTING CUMUIATIVE LISTING
\ __-z'·)
,......,.-

Shoji MURAMOTO Wolfgang RUMPF

Tradition and Modernity in Interreligious Dialogue [15-32] Über die Einheit von Wahrnehmen und Bewegen [60-84]
Eiko KAWAMURA Klaus ]ACOBI
Godas Absolute Nothingness [33-47] Die Idee neuzeidicher Naturwissenschaft und ihre theologische
Tsutomu HORIO Voraussetzung [85-95]
Zen in the Contemporary World [ 48-60] Eiko KAWAMURA
Phillip B. YAMPOLSKY Die Bedeutung der Naturwissenschaft Mr die Religion: Unter
Contemporary Zen in the West: Devotion and Scholarship dem Standpunkt des absoluten Nichts [96-114]
[61-70] Shóji MURAMOTO
Taishü TAGAMI The Personal Connotations of Religion and Science in J ung
The Internationalization of Zen: Problems and Perspectives [115-30]
[72-80] Volker BEEH
Bernard FAURE Logik und Religion [ 131-44]
Zen and Modernity [81-91]
James G. HART
Johannes LAUBE Transcendental Phenomenology and Zen Buddhism: A Start of
The Encounter between Religion and Our Age [92-103] a Conversation [ 145--60]
John C. MARALoo
Zen and Critica! Thinking [104-18] f án VAN BRAGT
Religion and Science in Nishitani Keiji [161-74] \'
Keiji NISHITANI AfTERWORD [175-78]
"Three Worlds-No Dharma: Where to Seek the Mind?"
[119-25]
AFTERWORD [126-28) Volume 6, 1988
Religion and Human Science in the Contemporary World

Volume 5, 1987 Bin KrMURA

Selfand Nature: An Interpretation ofSchizophrenia [1-10]
Zen-Buddhismus: Religion und Naturwissenschaft
Thomas LUCKMANN
Hans KüNG Religion and Modern Consciousness [11-22]
Wissenschaft und Religion: Zur Situation der Nachmoderne
Robert E. ALLINSON
[1-14]
Taoism in the Light of Zen: An Exercise in Intercultural
Klaus RrESENHUBER Hermeneutics [23-38]
Zurn Wesen von Technik in Geschichte und Gegenwart
[15-35] Wolfgang GIEGERICH
Rupture: Or, Psychology and Religion [39-49]
Chitai T AKENAKA
The Relation between Religion, Philosophy and Science in Hans-Jürgen GRESCHAT
Ancient India [36-49] History of Religions [ 50--62]
Michio YANO Sudhir KAKAR
Science and Religion in Ancient India [50-59] Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism [63--69]

178 179
 CUMUlATIVE LIST!NG CUMUlATIVE LISTING

John C. MARALDO Roben SPAEMANN

Nishida and the Individualization of Religion [70-87] On the Concept ofLife [77-83]
Shingyo YOSHIMOTO Kiyohide KrRITA
Psychological Attitudes of Abhidharmic Analysis in Yogacara The Concept of "Nature" in Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki: A
Buddhism [88-101]
Contemporary Problem [84-93]
Munesuke MITA
Jeremy HAYWARD
Transcending Transcending: Looking Back From Space
Deep Ecology and the Perception of the Sacredness of Our
[102-106]
World [94-110]
Shüji MURAMOTO
Arthur PEACOCKE
A Dasein-Analytic Essay on the Restoration of the Lost Soul :
From Depth Psychology to Ecstatic Psychology [107-24] The New Biology and Christian Theology [111-27]
Roland ROBERTSON Risao MATSUMARU
Modernity and Religion: Towards the Comparative Genealogy " The "Anthropic Principie" and the "Logic of Place" [ 128-35]
ofReligion in Global Perspective [125-33] Shizuteru VEDA 1
1~
Hisao MATSUMARU General Remarks [ 136-42]
The Place of Subject and Object: In Search of Possibilities of a AETERWORD [143-46)
Logic for Primordial Experience [134-49]
AETERWORD [150-54)
Volume 8, 1990
Religion and Ethics in the Contemporary World
Volume 7, 1989
Kiyohide KrRITA
Nature, Life, and Human Being
Buddhism and Social Ethics: The Significance of Our Theme
Tsutomu HORIO anda Few Propositions [1-10]
Objectivity in Religion and Science: Opening Remarks to the
Friedrich KrrMMEL
Seventh Kyoto Zen Symposium [l-10]
Responsibility and Self-Responsibility: The Notion of
Holmes RoLSTON III
Responsibility as a Social-J uridical and Religious- Ethical
Respect for Life : Can Zen Buddhism Help in Forming an
Category [ 11-32]
Environmental Ethic? [11-30]
Nobuyuki liDA
Yoichiro MURAKAMI
Can Convencional Science Deal with Life? [31-39] The Principies of Bioethics and Modern Understanding of Man
and Morality [ 33-40]
Paul HEIMBACH
Natur, Leben und Mensch: Betrachtungen eines Thomas P . KAsuus
Experimentalchemikers [40-56] Does East Asian Buddhism Have an Ethical System? [41-60]
Herbert PIETSCHMANN Yüichi KAJIYAMA
Science and Religion as Human Activities [57-67] Fundamentals ofBuddhist Ethics [61-70]
Kiyoshi KATO 'ko KAWAMURA
Psychedelic Phenomena and the Activation of Ultimate Ethics and Religion: From the Standpoint of Absolute
Concern [68-76] Nothingness [71-85]

180 181
 CUMULATIVE LISTING CUMULATIVE LISTING

Dietmar MIETH Alois M. HAAs

Meister Eckhart: A Mystical Alternative to Contemporary Ethics Dichtung in christlicher Mystik und Zen-Buddhismus
[86-111] [86-116]
Ruben L. F. HABITO Klaus RIESENHUBER
Toward a Global Spirituality: Buddhist and Christian Gebrauch und Konternplation: Zwei patristische Modelle des
Contributions [ 112-23] Verhaltnisses von Kultur und Religion [117-42]
Shigenori NAGATOMO Hugo SCHMALE
Ki -Energy: Understanding Religion and Ethics [124-39] ME Religion und Kultur von einern psychologischen
Chitai TAKENAKA Standpunkt [143-49] 1'
Religion and Ethics in Ancient India [140-51] AfTERWORD [150-53] '
James W. HEISIG
Toward a Principle ofSufficiency [152-64]
Shizuteru UEDA Volume 10, 1993
The Existence of Man: Life "One In eh off the Ground" Religion and the Contemporary World
\ l [165-71]
Burton WATSON
AfTERWORD [172-75] Buddhist Poetry and the Modern Reader [1-11]
Michel MOHR
Volume 9, 1992 "Experience" in the Light of Zen Buddhism [ 12-31]
Religion and Culture in the Contemporary World Urs APr
Science, Philosophy, and Religion [ 32-45]
Martin KRAATZ
Kenneth KRAFr
Aussen und Innen: Religionshistorische Überlegungen
The Greening of Buddhist Practice [ 46-64]
[1-19]
Thomas KlRCHNER
Chitai TAKENAKA
N oh and Zen: The Case of Zeami [20-29] Zen and the Art of Reason: Thoughts on the Possibilities and
Limitations of Zen Scholarship [65-78]
John C. MARALDO
Religion and Relativism: A Reappraisal [30-45] Livia KOHN
Quiet Sitting with Master Yinshi: Religion and Medicine in China
Johann FIGL
Kultur, Kunst und Religion: Transkulturelle Perspektiven Today [79-95]
angesichts des Buddhismus-Verstandnisses in Nietzsches Mark UNNO
>Geburt der Tragodie< [46-60] Divine Madness: Exploring the Boundaries of Modern J apan ese
Seik6 HIRATA Religion [96-112]
Zen und Culture [61-70] Shoji MURAMOTO
Tsutomu HORIO REFLECTIOns on the Self: Zen as a Radicalization of
The Characteristics of Zen Culture [71-76] Psychology? [ 113-25]
Takeo AsHIZU Stefan THUMFART
Der Raum, den die Poesie eroffnet [77-85] Nietzsche's Thought of the Eterna! Recurren ce [ 126-36]

182 183
 "
CUMUlATIVE LISTING CUMUlATIVE LISTING

Tetsuro MoRI Agustín JACINTO Z.

Dreaming and Awakening: The Self-expression of the World The Return of the Past: Tradition and the Political Microcosm
[137-52] in the La ter Nishida [ 132-48]
Shizuteru UEDA
1 1 Part 3: Questioning Modernity
Thoughts on Zen [153-70]
Tsutomu HORIO Andrew FEENBERG
Afterword [171-83] The Problem of Modernity in the Philosophy of Nishida
[151-73]
Kevin M. DOAK
Volume ll, 1994 Nationalism as Dialectics: Ethnicity, Moralism, and the State in
Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question ofNationalism Early Twentieth-Century Japan [174-96]
MINAMOTO Ryoen
The proceedings of the Eleventh Kyoto Zen Symposium were issued as the
The Symposium on "Overcoming Modernity" [197-229]
book RUDE AWAKENINGS: ZEN, THE KYOTO SCHOOL, ANO THE QUESTION
OF NATIONALISM (Zen Buddhism Today 11, special issue; University of Part 4: Questioning the Kyoto School
Hawai<i Press, 1994.
Jan VAN BRAGT
EDITORS' lNTRODUCTION [vii-x) Kyoto Philosophy: Intrinsically Nationalistic? [233-54]
CONTRIBUTORS [xi-xiii) James W. HEISIG
ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS [xv) Tanabe's Logic of the Specific and the Spirit of Nationalism
[255-88]
Part 1: Questioning Zen
HORIO Tsutomu
HIRATA Seiko The Chüokoron Discussions: Their Background and Meaning
Zen Buddhist Attitudes to War [3-15] [289-315]
Christopher !VES MoRI Tetsuro
Ethical Pitfalls in Imperial Zen and Nishida Philosophy: Nishitani Keiji and the Question ofNationalism [316-32]
Ichikawa Hakugen's Critique [16-39] John C. MARALDO
Robert H. SHARF Questioning Nationalism Now and Then: A Critica! Approach
Whose Zen? Zen Nationalism Revisited [40-51] to Zen and the Kyoto School [333-62]
KlRITA Kiyohide
D. T. Suzuki on Society and the State [52-74]
Volume 12, 1995
Part 2: Questioning Nishida Traditional Doctrine in the Modern Age
UEDA Shizuteru Winfried SCHULZE
Nishida, Nationalism, and the War in Question [77-106] The European Miracle Revisited [77-83]
Michiko YUSA SAKAMOTO Takao
Nishida and Totalitarianism: A Philosopher's Resistance Various Aspects ofTime Consciousness in Modern Japan
[107-31] [77-83]

184 185
 CUMUIATIVE LISTING CUMUIATIVE LISTING

James E . KETELAAR SONODA Minoru

Kaikyiiron: Buddhism Confronts Modernity [77-83] Reinstating the Transcendental Vision of Spirit: Environmental
FUJIMOTO Kiyohiko Issues and the Role ofReligion [121-26]
Modernization Movements and Tradicional Education in the SuzuKI Ka.kuzen
Pure Land Sect [77-83] Tradition and Creation: Modern People and Traditional
YASUTOMI Shinya Doctrine [127-35]
The Legacy of Meiji Shinshü [77-83] YuKI Hideo
Michel MOHR Tradition and Modernization: Protestantism in Japan
Monastic Tradition and Lay Practice from the Perspective of [137-41]
Nantenbo: A Response ofJapanese Zen Buddhism to AFTERWORD ( 143-45]
o
Modernity [77-83]
AfrERWORD (77-83]
Volume 14, 1997
Religion and the Contemporary World
Volume 13, 1996 in Light of Nishitani Keiji's Thought
Tradition and Change: Traditional Doctrine in the Modern Age \, MoRI Tetsur6
George D . BoND Religion in the Early Thought ofNishitani Keiji: The
Buddhist Responses to Modernity and Colonialism in Sri Lanka Bottomlessness ofNature [1-17]
[1-17] HoRIO Tsutomu
HONDA Hiroyuki Nishitani's Philosophy: The Later Period [19-32]
Other Power and Subjectivity [ 19-25] Bernard STEVENS
KlBA Akeshi
" Political Engagement and Political Judgment in the Thought of
Tradition and Reform in Modern Japanese Buddhism Nishitani Keiji [33-56]
[27-38] KADOWAKI Ken
Thomas KlRCHNER The Circle Play: Nishitani and Hegel [57--64]
Modernity and Rinzai Zen: Doctrinal Change or Continuity? HASE Sh6t6
[39-54] Emptiness Thought and the Concept of the Pure Land in
Johannes LAUBE Nishitani: In the Light of Imagination and the Body
On the Divergence ofTraditional Religious Doctrines and the [65-79]
Ways to Salvation for Modern Man: An Essay focusing on Graham P ARKES ,
Christianity [55-81] Resources for Ecological Thinking in the Philosophy of
Joseph O'LEARY Nishitani Keiji [81-95]
Modern Historical Consciousness in Roman Catholic Thought ' MATSUMARU Hisao
[83-108] Nishitani's Religionsphilosphie: Religion and the Standpoint of
ONo Bunko Sünyatii [97-113]
Trends ofNichiren Believers in 1931 [109-20] AFTERWORD [115-18]

186 187
 CUMUlATIVE LISTING

No. 15, November 1998 lndex of Authors

Nishida's Philosophy, Nishitani's Philosophy, and Zen Numbers represent the volume and page
Bernard STEVENS numbers where the authors ) articles appear
Reflections on the Notion of Reality in the Thought of Nishida
and Nishitani [1-14] ALLINSON, Robert E . 6:23-38
Michiko YusA APP, Urs 10:32--45
Nishida's Philosophy of Religion: A Religious Philosophy ARAMAKI Noritoshi 1:56-70
[15-32] Asmzu Takeo 9:77-85
Augustín JACINTO Z. BASU, Arabinda 3:15-34
The Bodily Manifestation of Religious Experience and Late 2:170-80
BECKMANN, Till
Nishida Philosophy [33-50]
BEEH, Volker 5:131--44
FUJITA Masakatsu
BOND, George D . 13:1-17
Questions Posed by Nishida's Philosophy [51-64]
CooK, Francis H . 1:85-91
YAGI Seiichi
DOAK, Kevin M. 11:174-96
The Language ofthe Kyoto School ofPhilosophy [65-76]
FAURE, Bernard 3:85-94: 4:81-91
Jan VAN BRAGT
Nishitani Revisited [77-95] FEENBERG, Andrew 11:151-73
FrGL, J ohann 9:46--60
John C. MARALDo
Emptiness, History, Accountability: A Critica! Examination of FUJIMOTO Kiyohiko 12:77-83
Nishitani Keiji's Standpoint [97-117] FUJITA Masakatsu 15:51--64
HASE Shoto FUJIYOSHI Jikai 1:92-95: 3:3-14
The Problem ofthe Other in Self-Awareness [119-38] GIEGERICH, Wolfgang 6:39--49
Graham P ARKES GIMELLO, Robert M . 1:49-55
Practicing Philosophy as a Matter ofLife and Death [139-53] GóMEZ, Luis O . 1:26--48
Horuo Tsutomu GRESCHAT, Hans-Jürgen 6:50--62
Gyakutaio and Gyakuen: Nishida's Philosophy, Nishitani's HAAs, Alois 2:150--69; 9:86-116
Philosophy, and Zen [155--68] HABITO, Ruben L. F. 8:112-23
AFTERWORD [169-74] HALBFASS, Wilhelm 3:72-84
CUMULATIVE LISTING OF CONTENTS [175-88] HART, James G. 5:145--60
lNDEX OF AUTHORS [188-92] HASE Sh6t6 14:65-79; 15:119-38
HAYVVARD, Jeremy 7:94-110
HEIMBACH, Paul 7:40-56
J '( HEISIG, James W. 8:152--64; 11:255-88
rQ~/
,'(0
G ,v
HIRATA Seiko
HONDA Hiroyuki
1:1-2; 2:181-84: 3:1-2; 9:61-70; 11:3-15
13:19-25
HORIO Tsutomu 2:36--46; 4:48-60: 7:1-10; 9:71-76; 10:171-83;
11:289-315; 14:19-32; 15:155--68

188 189
 lNDEX OF AUTHORS lNDEX OF AUTHORS

IIDA Nobuyuki 8:33-40 NISHIMURA Eshin 3:125-30

IVES, Christopher 11:16-39 NISHITANI Keiji 1:20-25; 2:185-87: 3:141-44: 4:119-25
JACINTO Z., Agustín 11:132-48; 15:35-52 ÜBERHAMMER, Gerhard 3:48-71
JACOBI, Klaus 5:85-95 O'LEARY, Joseph 13:83-108
KADOWAKI Ken 14:57-64 0No Bunko 13:109-20
KAJIYAMA Yüichi 8:61-70 PARKES, Graham 2:47-59; 14:81-95; 15:143-57
KAKAR, Sudhir 6:63-69 PEACOCKE, Arthur 7:111-27
KAsuus, Thomas P. 8:41-60 PIETSCHMANN, Herben 7:57-67
KATO Kiyoshi 7:68-76 RrESENHUBER, Klaus 5:15-35; 9:117-42
KAWAMURA Eiko 2:29-35; 4:33-47: 5:96-114; 8:71-85 ROBERTSON, Roland 6:125-33
KETELAAR, James E. 12:77-83 ROLSTON III, Holmes 7:11-30
KrBA Akeshi 13:27-38 RuMPF, Wolfgang 5:60-84
KrMURA Bin 6:1-10 SAKAMOTO Takao 12:77-83
KrRCHNER, Thomas 10:65-78; 13:39-54 SCHEIFFELE, Eberhard 2:78-90
KrRITA Kiyohide 4:1-14: 7:84-93; 8:1-10; 11:52-74 SCHMALE, Hugo 9:143-49
KoBAYASHI Ensho 3:131-40 SCHULZE, Winfried 12:77-83
KOHN, Livia 10:79-95 ScHÜRMANN, Reiner 2:127-49
KRAATz, Martin 9:1-19 SHARF, Roben H. 11:40-51
KRAFT, Kenneth 10:46-64 SMITH, Huston 1:3-19
KüMMEL, Friedrich 8:11-32 SONODA Minoru 13:121-26
KüNG, Hans 5:1-14 SPAEMANN, Roben 7:77-83
LAUBE, Johannes 4:92-103; 13:55-81 STEVENS, Bernard 14:33-56; 15:1-14
LOY, David 3:108-24 2:60-77
STROLZ, Walter
LUCKMANN, Thomas 6:11-22 SUZUKI Kakuzen 13:127-35
MARALDo, John C. 1:71-84: 4:104-18: 6:70-87; 9:30-45; TAGAMI Taishü 4:72-80
11:333-62; 15:97-117 TAJIMA Teruhisa 2:108-26
MATSUMARU Hisao 6:134-49; 7:128-35; 14:97-113 TAKENAKA Chitai 5:36-49; 8:140-51; 9:20-29
MIETH, Dietmar 8:86-111
THUMFART, Stefan 10:126-36
MINAMOTO Ryoen 11:197-229
UEDA Shizuteru 2:91-107; 7:136-42; 8:165-71; 10:153-70;
MITA Munesuke 6:102-106 11:77-106
MOHR, Michel 10:12-31; 12:77-83 10:96-112
UNNO, Mark
Moru Tetsuro 10:137-52; 11:316-32; 14:1-17 5:161-74; 11:233-54; 15:77-95
VAN BRAGT, Jan
MUKHERJEE, Padmaruchi 3:95-107 2:1-28
WALDENFELS, Hans
MURAKAMI Yoichiro 7:31-39 WATANABE Fumimaro 3:35-47
MURAMOTO Shoji 4:15-32: 5:115-30; 6:107-24; 10:113-25 10:1-11
WATSON, Bunon
NAGATOMO Shigenori 8:124-39 15:65-76
YAGI Seiichi

190 191
 INDEX OF AUTHORS

YAMPOLSKY,Phillip B. 4:61-70
YANo Michio 5:50-59
YASUTOMI Shinya 12:77-83
YOSHIMOTO Shingyo 6:88-101
YUKI Hideo 13:137-41
YUSA, Michiko 11:107-31; 15:15-32

192
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